Totterdown/Knowle to host Bristol’s first Sale Trail

Sunday 6 April, 10am to 2pm will see many residents of Totterdown and Knowle becoming the first in Bristol to test out a sustainability-friendly idea from Australia when they take part – as sellers or buyers - in a pioneering front garden/front room sale trail.

The initiative began via posts of the BS4 Connect and Totterdown Facebook pages asking if anyone else wanted to join Pam Beddard, of Brecknock Road, and Sam Hearn, of Somerset Road, in staging a neighbourhood-wide walkabout version of a car boot sale as a way to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill.

Pam Beddard explains: “The idea originates in Australia where Sale Trails now happen regularly in most major settlements and are credited with prolonging the useful life of more than a million items that might otherwise have gone to rubbish dumps. They work because bargain hunters enjoy being able to browse a lot of stalls during one outing and because households can turn much more than a car boot’s worth of stuff the no longer need into cash for themselves or their favourite charities.”

So far, around 20 people have indicated that they will be taking part in the inaugural Totterdown/Knowle Sale Trail on Sunday 6 April but more are welcome. 

To register an interest or find out more, find the BS_SaleTrail group on Facebook, visit the www.saletrail.co.uk website; follow @BS_SaleTrail (#saletrail) on Twitter account or email sell@saletrail.co.uk.

Participation is free for both sellers and buyers. Big thanks to Omni Digital for artwork and online tools.  

Tackling Bristol's food waste: Gleaning Network UK, Bristol hub launch

Gleaning Network UK, featured in BBC Radio 4's Food Programme, The Guardian, and Al Jazeera, and organised by Tristram Stuart and Feeding the 5,000, is an exciting new initiative to save the thousands of tonnes of fresh fruit and vegetables that are wasted on UK farms every year. Farmers across the country often have no choice but to leave tonnes of their crops unharvested and get ploughed back in the soil. These crops often cannot reach the market either because they fail to meet the strict cosmetic standards of supermarkets or because of overproduction.

We coordinate teams of volunteers, local farmers and food redistribution charities in order to salvage this fresh, nutritious food and direct it to those that need it most, such as homeless hostels and charities. To date, we have salvaged several tonnes of excellent unmarketable British produce, including apples, cabbages, cauliflowers, spring greens and kale, and redistributed them to charities such as FareShare. Here's some more info, our video, and pictures of our last gleaning day (our debut in Sussex, with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall from River Cottage along for the day!). The movement is gathering pace, and we're rapidly expanding into a national network. Join the Arable Spring!

We're launching our Bristol hub at the moment, and we need your help! We'll have gleaning events coming up over the next few months, and we need volunteers to come help harvest that tasty wonky fruit and veg, as well as local drivers. If you'd be interested in volunteering over the next few months, just sign up to our gleaning list to be the first to know when we have our debut Bristol gleaning day set, or if you have any questions contact maddy@feeding5k.org

See you in the fields!

Many thanks,

Maddy Longhurst

Bristol Gleaning Co-ordinator
www.feeding5k.org
www.tristramstuart.co.uk

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www.feeding5k.org

Haven’t signed the Feeding the 5000 pledge yet? Go to www.feeding5k.org and make your voice heard!