With the vital climate conference taking place in Glasgow in less than two weeks’ time, Peasedown Environment Group (PEG) are launching two initiatives for the village to play its part.

The first is 2K4PSJ. Nationally, many car journeys are very short and if we could take those journeys on foot or on bike, then we could cut emissions immediately. 95% of the village is within 1km of the village centre. So, 2K4PSJ (2 kilometres for Peasedown St John) asks everyone to consider leaving the car at home if their journey is less than 1km in one direction saving 2km worth of fuel, CO2 and pollution. PEG calculate that if every car owner in the village were to walk or cycle one journey a week instead of taking the car, that would take 44 tonnes of CO2 out of the atmosphere.

Ian Souter from PEG says, “We are not anti-car and we recognise that some people depend on their car for health reasons and that when you’ve got a heavy load to carry then the car may be necessary, and if it’s pouring down with rain then, OK, use your car. But we would ask people to think about whether they need to use their car for every journey. And, of course, you’ll meet people on the walk or ride, hear the birds, keep fit and save money!”

Leaflets about 2K4 will be available at various points in the village and PEG would love people to sign up by returning a slip or signing one of the posters that will be around the village, so that PEG can tell our political leaders how much support there is. The most important thing is for all of us to ask: “Do I need to use the car?”.

The second initiative is a campaign on plastic. PEG has organised Terracycle collections since August 2020 and have taken 193kg of plastic waste – crisp packets, pens, ink jet cartridges, blister packs from pills etc – out of landfill and into recycling. But there is a problem – why is there all this plastic in the first place? We are asking people to join us in an effort to ask businesses to reduce dramatically the amount of plastic in packaging etc. We will provide a postcard that can be handed in to shops or businesses to ask them what they are doing about plastic. These will be available at the Terracycle collections on 21st and 23rd October at the Methodist Church from 10 to 11.30 am.