Eco Ely is a community group aimed at like-minded residents of Ely and surrounding villages, who are interested in environmental issues, sustainability, recycling and making a difference where we live. It was started up by Hayley Ellis in late spring and has been growing support, and plenty of media publicity, since.
There is a Facebook group, Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram.
Hayley set up the organization after attending an event about Eco Churches at Ely Cathedral.
Hayley states: “So far we have been encouraging the local villages and towns to do more with recycling and now nearly every local area has various TerraCycle recycling points.
TerraCycle is ‘Eliminating the Idea of Waste® by recycling the “nonrecyclable.’ Whether it’s coffee capsules from your home or pens from a school, TerraCycle can collect and recycle almost any form of waste.” The most popular TerraCycle Stream locally is Crisp Packets. We wanted Eco Ely to be more than just recycling though.
We want to look at the small changes we can be making to help reduce our own waste and change our habits to more eco-friendly solutions.
We have set up the Eco Ely Party Pack Hire. So far we have one in Littleport and Soham and we are getting the Ely one set up in September to be borrowed from the new Prospects Trust Unwrapped shop.
We have hosted a Swishing Event, which is a clothes swapping event where you bring clothes that you no longer want or wear but are still in good condition, and you exchange them for points, and you can then spend your points on new clothing and host another one in October.
Eco Ely has also been encouraging any businesses that have food waste to join the Too Good To Go App. Clare Thompson from Clare’s Kitchen in Littleport stated “Hayley from Eco Ely has helped encourage me to join Eco initiatives like Refill and Too Good To Go. Too Good To Go has helped me as a business to reduce food waste, it has brought me in new customers and it is simple and easy to use. I would recommend and encourage others to use.”
Eco Ely is also working with the Older People’s Wards at Addenbrookes Hospital who are collecting unwanted toiletries for their patients; this is an ideal way to re-gift items you may have at home that you no longer want.
There are collection points at Clare’s Kitchen in Littleport and AAA Motorbike Training in Littleport.
Clare’s Kitchen in Littleport offers their used coffee grounds to customers for free as they are useful in gardening.
Eco Ely is keen to work with children and have already worked with ThePORT in Littleport to run a Litter Pick, an Eco Quiz and offered Eco Friendly raffle prizes.
Eco Ely is happy to be working with Ely and Littleport Timebank to work on some collaborative workshops starting in November for more DIY Eco Swaps like make your own soaps, make your own body scrub, make your own eco-friendly cleaning products, bee bombs and other ideas.
Eco Ely is also looking at running additional workshops in Eco Bricking, Sanitary Product Alternatives, Wet Wipe Alternatives and anything else people are interested in learning more about.
Hayley is also attending training in the autumn on setting up Repair Cafes and attending training on Thermal Imaging and hopes to offer this service in Ely for residents to assess local homes. Significant improvements in comfort, energy bills and carbon emissions are often made as a result.
We are even thinking ahead to an Eco Christmas and looking forward to helping people think differently about gifts, wrapping, tree and much more.
We are having our first Official Meeting on Wednesday 4th of September at 7pm at St Mary’s Church Hall in Ely. Please come and hear more about Eco Ely. We are particularly keen to set up a committee, and if you have any skills or support you would like to offer, we would love to hear from you!” email ecoelycambs@hotmail.com