Recycling

Most of what you need to know about recycling in Oxford can be found on the Council's Recycling Page. In short, however: being a fairly 'green' city, most of Oxford has some kind of home collection provision for glass, tins and paper, and there is probably something you can do with what isn't collected. The Council have in 2007 started to collect card, plastic, paper, glass, tins and garden waste from some areas of Oxford; find out if that includes you via this page. If you're outwith these areas, cardboard, working garden tools, furniture, clothes, shoes, batteries - in fact, more or less anything as long as it's still usable - can be taken to the recycling centre at Redbridge (01865 721464 - turn off at the bottom of the Abingdon Road), and you can find a list of the council's 8 plastic recycling collection points here. (See our Maps page if this is all too confusing).

If on the other hand you want to do some more direct recycling, you may wish to try these organisations:

Reduce landfill and give & get for free with Oxford Freecycle (a Yahoo! Group featured on Radio 4. There's also an embryonic Kidlington branch too, as of Oct 2007). One person's rubbish may be another's valued treasure; rematching the two is a problem solved by this web-based posting system. (You don't need to have a Yahoo email account to join the group; just follow the "join this group" link on the first page.) Orinoco Scrapstore has been doing the same thing with paint, scrap materials and tools collected from businesses for years, with the added advantage of a small warehouse you can visit like a shop. They also have bring-and-swap days.

Not-for-profit company Oxford Wood Recycling takes pallets and other industrial waste timber and turns it into safely useable firewood which they sell in monthly batches.

Environmental Mobile Control Ltd is a firm who will take away your old mobile phones, recycle them, and give money in return, to you or your nominated charity. See their site or call Recycling Manager Liz Simpson on 01283 516259.

Combine recycling, healthy living and social beneficence in one easy move by getting a bike from the Oxford Cycle Workshop at 39 Magdalen Road, east Oxford. A cooperatively managed social enterprise promoting cycle use in the city, it's the only bike shop in town dedicated to recycling or reusing old bikes through reconditioning and repair (also offering training in related skills). See more on bikes and such below.

Recycle clothes by shopping at vintage and charity shops (see our list of them, complete with synopses of what the charities do) with the added benefits of raising money for good causes and looking unique!

Oxford-based outfit www.rescuetheplanet.com sell a range of swanky, useful gift items made out of tyres, washing machines, circuit boards and so on.

In addition, you might like to investigate the following resources:

• Oxford Brookes Environmental Information Exchange: 'a forum for the exchange of environmental information, primarily amongst small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) in Oxfordshire'.

• Recycling in Headington (full guide to facilities).

• Oxfordshire Community and Voluntary Action collect re-useable furniture, electrical appliances and other household items, and then re-distribute them to people on benefits and low incomes. You can also buy their products from them (discounted if you're on benefits, an OAP or a student, full price if you're not).

• Want to reduce waste in your community? Community Action Groups (5 in Oxford, 12 countywide) are volunteers who organise litter picks, swap shops (bring and takes), green shredding days and other events in their local area. More details on their website.

• The City Council's Recycling Directory has useful suggestions in alphabetical order for what do do with specific items.

• Paths to Freedom This excellent website documents the progress of a Californian family who "have worked away at transforming their ordinary city lot in Pasadena, California into an integral urban homestead." They support 4 adults on one fifth of an acre, which produces over three tons of organic produce per year, and are gradually reducing their dependence on non-renewable resources. So if you enjoyed "The Good Life" in the seventies, find out how to do it for real.

Healthy Living

You are what you eat, they say. Organic food is available from an ever increasing number of outlets. At Daily Info we rather like the Alpha Bar in the Covered Market and Uhuru Wholefoods on the Cowley Road. The Alpha Bar now has a sister shop, which is rather more upmarket and deli-like, next to Brown's on St Giles. There are farmers' markets in Wolvercote most Sundays and occasionally in Gloucester Green on Thursdays - have a look at our Festivals, Fairs and Markets page for more details. See also our Food Shopping page for many details about local organic vegetables and fresh produce generally.

You can buy 1kg of Fair Trade tea bags (440 bags) for £8.99 at the Oxfam shop on Broad Street, which works out at c. 2p/bag (possibly cheaper than Tescos and definitely better for everyone concerned.) A broader range of fairly traded items can be found in the Fair Trade shop beneath St Michael at the Northgate Church on Cornmarket Street.

Our page on Pick Your Own farms in the Oxford area can be found here; they tend not to be very organic but our proprietor holds that it's the only way to get properly fresh sweetcorn.

Also while we're on the subject, you may wish to explore this page from the website of The Ecologist Magazine with all sorts of useful food-related links. In fact, their website is a great place to start for all sorts of things sound and sustainable.

Other Useful Stuff

Oxfordshire Green Pages is an annual directory for Oxfordshire, containing over 80 pages of listings for all aspects of green living, holistic health, community and social justice. If you can't find what you're looking for there, it might well not exist yet! If you do find it, the Oxford Green Map can probably tell you how to get there (and a whole lot more about Oxford's diverse ecological landmarks besides).

What can you do to minimise your ecological footprint to a dainty size 3? Look to your energy use for starters. Good Energy is one site offering electricity on a (sort of) renewable basis. Ecotricity is another. An interesting article about how this works, (or doesn't) is available here.

The Energy Saving Trust - for which the Thames Valley Energy Centre is the regional advice centre - can, as you might expect, tell you how to save energy. They also have a free, impartial energy saving advice line (0800 512 012), send out energy packs on request and can do short presentations for local community groups.

How to get healthy and save the world all at once? Convert your car into a plant pot or a climbing frame, and use some sustainable transport. Cyclox exists to encourage people to get on their bikes, with fun events, maintenance advice and campaigning; Sustrans offers UK cycle route maps and more; Liftshare helps us all feel less guilty about those essential cross-country trips by enabling journey-sharing. See also our page on Public Transport in Oxford. The newest addition to provision in this field is OxonCarts, Oxford's very own bicycle rickshaw company, available for hire 7 days a week.

Got your own publication, and concerned about the environmental effects of producing it? Oxford GreenPrint is a small, friendly, environmentally-conscious and affordable printing and design company based in East Oxford.

You can buy rainforest as a gift (for a friend or simply for future generations) at many places on the internet. We favour doing so through the World Land Trust, because David Attenborough is one of their patrons, so they're likely to be reliable. It costs, at time of writing, only £25 / acre (that's 208.7 feet x 208.7 feet).

Always fancied the idea of keeping chickens, but never got round to doing anything about it? Here's a chance to rectify the situation and do something nice at the same time: by rehoming the hens regularly cast off by the battery farming industry (saving them from becoming the chicken flavouring in soup, pot noodles and crisps). Unsurprisingly, these birds tend to be great layers, and will live 4 or 5 years after rescue. They can also make great pets! Visit the fabulously comprehensive Battery Hen Welfare Trust website for full details: www.thehenshouse.co.uk.

This page added thanks to the helpful suggestion of one of our readers.
Something missing? Do let us know!