Green Facts

North Norfolk District Council has made Environmental Sustainability a new key theme in its Corporate Plan for 2008-2011

This means that over the next 3 years we will implement a plan that will reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the amount of resources we use as a Council and encourage North Norfolk residents to do the same.

NNDC has signed the Nottingham Declaration on Climate change, which also commits us to taking action to tackle the causes and effects of climate change. We have also developed a Carbon Management Plan which aims to cut our CO2 emissions by 33% over the next 5 years.

We have installed over 200 'Intelli-panels' into our Cromer office. This ensures that PC monitors switch off automatically when the PC is shut down therefore saving energy and money and reducing CO2 emissions. This, along with our Staff Energy Awareness and Green Champion schemes have reduced our electricity consumption by 6%, saved us £5000 in electricity costs and reduced CO2 emissions by 17 tonnes per year.

The Council now sources the electricity for our Cromer Office from a 100% renewable tariff. This has saved 251 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere. We will also save approximately £13,500 over the 36 month contract as we negotiated a cheaper price per kWh than with our previous supplier.

An average Norfolk resident is responsible for releasing 9.3 tonnes of CO2 every year - enough to fill five hot air balloons. If you would like to make a pledge to reduce your own CO2 emissions, visit www.1010uk.org. The 10:10 campaign is a national campaign to encourage individuals, businesses and organisations to pledge to cut their emissions and help prevent climate change in the year 2010.

Official:North Norfolk residents are among the best recyclers in the country! In 2003/04, only 17% (6800 tonnes) of total household waste in North Norfolk was recycled, but this has almost trebled to 46% (19700 tonnes) in 2008/09!

This included 11750 tonnes of material collected in green bins and recycling banks across the district – equivalent in weight to 1678 double-decker buses! (7 tonnes per bus). Where could we fit all that waste if we didn’t recycle?

The quantity of Garden waste being composted has increased more than tenfold, from 725 tonnes in 2004/05 to 7811 tonnes in 2008/09! Collect your free bag of compost from the car park on your way home.
Over 80,000 low cost home compost bins have been distributed to Norfolk householders through council schemes – order yours today at www.recyclenow.com/compost.

Approximately 6500 tonnes of textiles are thrown out each year by Norfolk residents – this all ends up in a landfill site. Most of these could be reused or recycled.

13 billion plastic carrier bags are used in the UK each year – visit the Recycle for Norfolk stand today and pick up a free reusable bag.

Norfolk residents throw away enough waste every year to cover the Carrow Road football pitch to a depth of 25m.

There are recycling bins on site over the weekend – use them and help us achieve our target of 50% recycling by 2009.