Schools To Face £50 Charge For Composting?

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compost bins, Composting, schools, telegraph

Well I think I’ve heard it all now! In The Telegraph yesterday there was an article by Louise Gray revealing that schools may face a £50 charge for the privilege of being able to compost! Also, it’s not just schools that may be affected but also community groups as well.

If you’d like to read the full article simply click here however my personal opinion is surely we should all be making sure that things like this aren’t allowed to be implemented as we’re trying to educate our children to care for the environment more!

Not only does composting reduce the amout of landfill, surely it promotes the fact that we waste far too much anyway and should be recycling whereever and whenever we can?

It will be really interesting to see if this idea develops further, let’s hope it doesn’t as promoting gardening, composting and caring for the environment in schools can only be a good thing. Let’s encourage our children to do more of it!

Debs x

Hope This Makes You Laugh!

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halloween, joke, pumpkin

Sylvia sent me this little joke a few weeks ago and I thought with all the ‘doom and gloom’ going on in then news, we could all do with a little something to make us smile so here goes…………..

 What do you get if you divide the circumference of a pumpkin by its diameter?
Pumpkin pi.

Schools Competition – Win an Allotment Plot and Seeds!

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children, competition, gardening for schools, recycleworks, school gardening

Here at The Recycle Works we are passionate about our environment and at the moment we are working on some exciting new projects for young gardners. At the moment we are trying to find out as much as we can about what’s already happening in our schools and that’s where you can help!

We would love to hear about your school gardening experiences, whatever they may be! So please do ask your teachers to complete our online questionnaire by simply CLICKING HERE and in return for participating before 30th November 2008, we’ll give that school a 10% discount voucher that they can use on their first order with us to say thank you. And furthermore, each completed questionnaire will go into a prize draw to win a children’s vegetable plot.

So thank you for spreading the word and good luck!

Our New Affiliate Scheme is Live! Why Not Join Us?

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affiliate, affiliate scheme, commission, income, revenue

We’ve been hinting now for a few weeks that we’ve been working on some wonderful new initiatives and product innovations at The Recycle Works and we’re absolutely delighted to announce that our new affiliate scheme is now live!

 Many of you have been asking if you could promote our products to friends, family, school PTA’s, gardening clubs, website readers and now you can! It’s so simple to do, all you have to do is apply and once accepted you can then add one of our wonderful banners to your own website, blog etc and you’ll have your own log in to our website where you can track your sales and commission earned. It’s so easy to do and we’ll help you every step of the way!

 

If you’d like to become one of our special affiliate partners and receive commission in return for promoting our products via your own Websites, Blogs, Community Sites, Intranets etc, simply apply to join by CLICKING HERE and submitting your details. We’ll then review your application and contact you by return!

 

If you’d like to find out more about our affiliate scheme before deciding to apply, just send Debbie a quick email at debbie@recycleworks.co.uk and she’ll help you all she can.

Sylvia Goes off to Number 10!

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Downing Street, Number 10, older peoples day, Sylvia Hopwood

Believe it or not, on Wednesday 1st October it was Older People’s Day and I was invited to a reception at No 10 Downing Street to mark the occasion. Yes really, and whilst there shook the hand of both the PM and Sara, his wife. However you will be much more interested in why, apart from being closely related to Methuselah, I was there.

 

First about 90 older people assembled at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for tea and sarnies and an interesting spiel from Mike O’Brien, Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, who told us that just five years ago the Queen was sending out about 2,500 congratulatory telegrams a year to centagenerians. This year it would be 10,000 and in a few years this number will rise to 25,000. Extrapolated further, for our current under 5s, as many as 25% of them can expect to live to 100 and more. Mind blowing or not!
 
Some of us then crossed the street to No 10 where the hospitality was more sophisticated altogether. We were allowed ‘to roam’ about the state rooms with a glass of wine, admire the pictures and meet even more older people, most of whom are doing work with children. It was a great privilege and, though Debbie was far too young to come, her image was sitting on my shoulder all day so I never felt on my own!
 
Children and Older people, both are a great resource, the former often needing more stimulation, the latter being under appreciated and underutilised. Intergenerational was a word spoken many times, and the point of the day was to promote the positive outcome when children and old people get together. You can be sure that there is a positive outcome in financial terms for the government too! So as the young say – It’s a win-win situation.

Sylvia x

Grown Lots of Courgettes? Make this Fabulous Courgette Souffle!

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courgette souffle, courgettes, recipe

We love receiving your feedbackand please do continue to send us as much as possible. In return, we’ll do our best to implement what we can and we’ve now added this new category to our blog, so that we can help with ideas for all those wonderful vegetables that you grow.

So here’s our first recipe idea, courtesy of our very own Charlotte Green!

Courgette Souffle

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 garlic clove
• 250g courgettes sliced
• 25g butter
• 25g plain flour
• 150 ml hot milk
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 egg whites
• 25g cheddar or gruyere cheese

Fry garlic and courgettes in a pan until soft but not browned, allowing almost all of the water to evaporate off Remove from the heat, cool

Mash or blend to a pulp. Set aside

Melt the butter and add flour

Add milk gradually, mixing constantly to make a sauce. Add extra milk if needed.

Add the sauce, egg yolks and cheese to the courgettes. Beat well to get a sticky mixture

In a seperate bowl whisk the egg whites until stiff

Stir in 1/3 of the egg whites into the courgette mixture then fold in the remaining egg whites.

Put into a greased souffle dish and bake for around 20 minutes at 190 C until golden brown.

Tip: If you have a glut of courgettes the courgette garlic pulp can be frozen and used later!

Let us know how your souffle turns out and if you have any recipes you’d like us to share with our Blog and Newsletter readers, please email them across to us at sylvia@recycleworks.co.uk.

Happy Cooking!