Come to south London's eighth community lavender harvest

This year will see the eighth community lavender harvest take place on 29th & 30th July, 10am - 4pm at the Stanley Road Allotments in Carshalton, south London.

Back in Victorian Times south London was the lavender-growing capital of the world! In 1997 BioRegional decided it was time to rekindle the area's industry. We found 3-acres of disused allotments perfect for our needs. Sutton Council donated the land and Yardley provided sponsorship. We worked with local prisoners on day-release from HMP Downview to clear tonnes of fly-tipped rubbish from the allotments.

Today the field is managed by a local community group – Carshalton Lavender. On the day the team can tell you about south London’s lavender-growing history.

This year's event will include: lavender PYO, aromatherapy advice, barbecue, beekeepers, lavender oil distillation display, heritage harvester, lavender cookie tasting, local artists at work, lavender arts and crafts, cooking with lavender booklet, herb and lavender plants for sale. We hope you can
make it!

We have established a 20-acre lavender field in Carshalton Beeches with funding from Yardley, Biffaward and Homebase, and are now working with two local companies to take over management of the field and produce a new range of local lavender products.

more information

Help British butterflies this Summer – by having a BBQ!

With spring now in full swing many of us will have already been barbequeing in our back gardens. It’s a great way to spend an afternoon and good for UK woodlands too if you BBQ using a locally produced charcoal.

BioRegional Charcoal Company coordinates a national network of charcoal burners producing charcoal from UK woodlands. Our burners sustainably manage their woodlands using a centuries-old practice called coppicing. Coppicers cut back trees on a 7 year rotation, allowing sunlight to reach the woodland floor, which creates habitat for threatened species such as pearl-bordered fritillary butterflies and the dormouse. UK charcoal also creates rural jobs and cuts transport emissions by 85% compared to imports from South Africa and South America.

Our charcoal is available from selected B&Q stores as B&Q locally produced charcoal or BioRegional Home Grown charcoal. more information

Green chemistry is taking us a step closer to producing green clothing

Our new study into finding an economically feasible way to produce hemp textiles in the western world is getting underway. Leeds University's Centre for Plant Sciences has already started to identify the location and nature of the pectins and gums that bind the fibres into the stem. Once we understand how the fibres are bound Leeds' Green Chemistry group will work to find a way to efficiently extract them. We will cultivate a hemp field in the South East this Summer and run trials on the crop. This research programme builds on previous work carried out by BioRegional.

Hemp is a low impact alternative to cotton which can easily be grown organically in the UK. Production of cotton in areas such as central Asia leads to environmental degradation through its high water demand and chemical pollution, as well as the transport of resources around the globe.

This project is funded by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), The Manifold Trust and the Wyndham Charitable Trust.

More information

A section of hemp stem labelled with a fluorescently-tagged monoclonal anti body

Volume house builders in Thames Gateway can use 64% recycled materials in new developments

Green glass bottles can be recycled
into sand

Z-squared's sustainable community team has just released new findings on how volume house builders within the Thames Gateway can substitute 64% of ‘standard’ construction materials with recycled and reclaimed materials without changing their construction systems.

Z-squared is a concept design for a 2,000-home mixed use community within the Thames Gateway carried out by BioRegional and partners. The design aims to demonstrate ways of achieving zero carbon zero waste (hence Z-squared) targets within the context of mainstream development.

The analysis found that by substituting materials that are readily available and have already been used in other developments, it is possible to increase the recycled content of a development to 64% (including recycled steel as a recycled material). Furthermore, if the design was changed to accommodate other reclaimed materials, and sufficient lead time given for sourcing all possible reclaimed materials, nearly 80% of any building could be built from recycled and reclaimed materials. The research also gives information on where developers can source these materials and the environmental gains achieved by doing so.

This work has been funded by GrantScape and Defra.

The two reports from this study are now available to download for free from our website

New construction materials project will divert 2,000 tonnes of material from landfill

BioRegional are very happy to announce a £95,000 grant has been secured from Defra's Business Reuse Fund. The project will fund a year's work with construction and demolition teams to increase the use of reclaimed construction materials.

We will be working with demolition contractors to salvage materials such as timber joists, steel beams and cladding materials, and finding reuse homes for those materials on other construction projects. We hope to work with at least 50 projects during the year and to divert 2,000 tonnes of material from landfill.

Building scheduled for demolition