Moorlands Climate Action are thrilled to be able to host a Fashion Show brought to us by the wonderful, talented New Mills Fashion Activistas.   

New Mills Fashion Activistas (a play on the word ‘fashionistas’) is a group of people worried about the cost of fashion for our planet.  As well as being able to repair and upcycle clothes, their main aim is to engage people in a conversation about how we can all do better as consumers when it comes to buying clothes - shedding light on the environmental and ethical issues associated with conventional fashion practices.

They hold talks and workshops as well as Fashion Shows, which started when they founded New Mills Fashion Week.   In their shows, they display outfits they have created from preloved clothes, often embellished with beautiful eye-catching embroidery and slogans with messages about fashion and our world, inspiring change and also promoting an eco-friendly approach to style.

Audience members are encouraged to come along wearing their own preloved outfits and, if they wish, to share their stories.  It promises to be a fun, informative evening. 

The Fashion Show will be taking place on Thursday 18 September.  It is a free event...

Read more: Love it Again Fashion Show

The Refill Campaign has been running in Leek for several years now and we're proud to have signed up more than twenty businesses.  Following on from a meeting last year between SMDC and MCA, we understand that SMDC / High Peak Councils have now registered as a Refill partner for 2 years. We look forward to hearing more about their plans to develop the scheme that MCA originally registered for the Moorlands 5 years ago. Working with the councils should ensure greater publicity in items such as tourist information, as well as in places like leisure centres and food outlets. We hope the council will install water fountains in the market halls and other public areas.

We're now approaching World Refill Day on 16 June, a day that's not just about raising awareness but inspiring a reuse revolution around the world. Why not take part in the #5DayChallenge and share your experiences with others? 

You can download the free Refill app here - https://www.refill.org.uk/   Let's stop waste before it starts.

Leek First School were delighted to receive their Plastic Free School Award recently – the first in Leek!

Plastic Free Schools is a nationwide movement, part of the Surfers Against Sewage Plastic Free Communities. Plastic Free Schools sets out to eradicate single-use plastic from our environment. It helps pupils understand the issues with plastic in the environment and teaches them to spot single-use items, question whether we need them and replace them with something better.

I was delighted to help the children from Leek First, some as young as 5, who have put in months of hard work in order to win this award. Some of the things they have done are carrying out an audit of all the single use plastics in the school, taking part in litter picks (and discovering that most of what they found was plastic) and writing to the Prime Minister to tell him how concerned they are about plastic pollution and what the government are doing about it.

I have also been working with Beresford First School and am planning to work with St Edwards Middle School this year, teaching the adults of the future that there are alternatives to single-use plastics.

Well done Leek First!

Sally Perry

Over ten million tonnes of food are wasted every year in the UK and a lot goes to landfill or is incinerated with general waste.

Not wasting food would save people a lot of money but we still throw away tonnes every day when there are millions of people in the world who don’t have enough to eat; unsustainable food production and waste also contribute to climate change.

As a result, the Government is introducing changes around the collection and processing of food waste. All councils in England will have to provide weekly, separate household food waste collections by March 2026.

Separate collections of food waste will prevent contamination of other waste, some of which could then be recycled. Food waste will be sent to anaerobic digestion facilities which will in turn provide sustainable energy, cutting down the more than 18 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions associated with this waste, including methane, a greenhouse gas that has 27-30 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide.

The government believes that if people are more aware of how much food they are wasting, they will want to do something about it, so the scheme will hopefully reduce overall waste. There are many reasons people waste food, including simply forgetting they had bought it, buying / cooking too much, sticking to best before dates rigidly, not planning meals and writing shopping lists.

The most common wasted foods in the UK are bread, bagged salad, fresh fruit and vegetables, cooked leftovers, milk, eggs, cheese, meat and fish. Fizzy pop too!

There are lots of ways to reduce our food waste. Here are some ideas:

Read more: The Problem with Food Waste

Since the end of Lockdown, a small group has been meeting every month to make ecobricks - a joint endeavour between MCA and the Quaker Friends.

The project is nearly complete and we will be building a planter in the Meeting House garden. The structure is to be built with the ecobricks and held together and protected from the elements by cob. We aim to have it completed by the end of August.

We all know how bad the fashion industry is for the planet, with high carbon emissions and pollution, so we held another Clothes Swap in May (this time with media included), encouraging people to wear ‘preloved’ clothes instead of buying new.  Good for the planet as well as people’s purses. We plan to hold another on Saturday, 23 November.

Also planned for the Autumn is a Fashion Show for Buxton and Leek College, organised by New Mills Fashion Activistas and supported by us.  It will consist of upcycled and altered clothes, showing the students what can be done with a little imagination and a needle and thread!  Each piece will have a story behind it and an environmental message. The show will be in college, for the students, but we are looking for anyone who has sewing skills and can create wonderful outfits to add to the show – please get in touch if you can.  If you don’t want to model it we will find someone who can!

If you feel you can get involved in any way please get in touch!
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