The Charlbury Area Waste Action Group (CAWAG) was created in 1997 and has worked closely with both West Oxfordshire District Council and Oxfordshire County Council to continually increase the recycling facilities via the black boxes and green waste scheme and the recycling bins at the Spendlove. The Charlbury Area Waste Action Group:

• "REDUCE" - To reduce energy use, reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and reduce the number of broken lightbulbs to be disposed of, we loan out a Low-energy Lightbulb Library containing about 70 different varieties of bulb to help people find the right bulb for their individual light fittings. See below for more details.
• "RE-USE" - Bring and Take (swap shops) at the Memorial Hall every six months, no money changes hands - you just bring what you don't want and take what you fancy! Next one is Saturday 1st March 2008 from 10am until 12 noon.
• "RECYCLE" - FREE Green Waste collections at the Spendlove on the first Saturday of EVERY month from 10am until 12 noon (prior to 2007, these collections were every other month). A Yellow Pages collection bin is organised at the Spendlove every year.
• Production of a printed A-Z Directory of local waste reduction, reuse & recycling facilities. Download a pdf version here. On line version of the CAWAG A-Z directory of what to do with your unwanted items:http://www.cwag.org.uk/Or contact CAWAG for a hard copy by emailing Colin
• Information displays at Wychwood Fair and Charlbury Street Fair every year.
• Public talks on waste and recycling.
• Local survey on waste and recycling.
  

Events: See events list for further details Members took part in a packaging event

Take a simple first step to help prevent climate change - change to low-energy lightbulbs throughout your house.

There is now a huge range of size and type of low-energy lightbulb available, so avoid making expensive mistakes by borrowing our lightbulb library for a couple of evenings so that you can actually try them in your own light fittings. There are bulbs that fit cooker hoods, daylight bulbs for desk lamps, dimmers, GU10s, spotlights, candles, etc and the library provides full details on costs and where they can be obtained.

By installing low-energy bulbs you can cut the energy you use for lighting by 75% so also reducing your carbon emissions by 75%. They also last much longer than conventional bulbs (e.g. 8 times as long) so the number of broken bulbs which have to be disposed of is much reduced.

The library also includes a wattage and current meter so that you can measure the electricity consumed by an appliance (e.g. a TV) in standby mode or by a transformer when the appliance (e.g. a radio) is switched off.

Reducing your electricity consumption and reducing your consumption of lightbulbs will make a postive contribution to reducing your carbon footprint and will have an impact on global warming.

Please contact Louise Spicer to borrow the lightbulb library by phoning 01608-810745. (the light bulb library is on temporary load to Witney Waste Action group)

The library has been organised and funded by the Charlbury Area Waste Action Group in conjunction with Sustainable Charlbury (SusCha).