Local authorities are well placed to take a lead on waste prevention and are key in engaging local communities to take part in waste prevention activities. Our work with local authorities is nationwide.  

We provide information and training to local authority officers and aim to influence council-wide policy so that borough’s are able to take a more sustainable approach to waste.We have a number of resources available for local authorities, including a sample presentation for all council staff, 25 Waste Prevention Ideas for Local Authorities and information and contacts about sustainable tourism. These are available for download from our Resources page.

Give or Take Days are waste exchange events. They're popular across Europe and are fast becoming the 'in thing' here. Think of a good quality jumble sale where you leave your wallet at home, and cross it with a trip to the tip and you're on the right track.

We see Give or Take Days as a way of keeping valuable resources within communities and stopping items that can be re-used or repaired from going to landfill or incineration.

To find out more about past events, check out our Give or Take Day Gallery. To download copies of the Kit, please visit our Resources page.

We hear a lot about ‘taking only pictures and leaving only footprints’ when we go on holiday to far-flung parts of the world, but what about when we holiday in the U.K?

In recent years, the U.K has seen a big rise in domestic tourism. In 2002, the British took 101.7 million holidays in the U.K. But as tourism continues to grow, it can be destructive to the environment.

In 2003-4 WEN worked with local authority recycling and tourism officers, local tourist boards, green accommodation providers (eco-hoteliers), local farmers, food growers and businesses to find greener tourism solutions.

For more information about how you can take a greener U.K holiday, see our practical guide to sustainable tourism, Greener Ways for UK Holidays (pdf).

Have you ever been to the supermarket and been horrified by the amount of packaging used? 10.24 million tonnes of packaging are thrown away in the U.K every year. Now you can do something about it.

WEN’s Packaging Action Kit is designed to help you stand up to the supermarkets and say ‘enough is enough’. With useful tips on who to write to and action to take, the kit walks you through legal packaging requirements and give you top tips on the alternatives to all that unnecessary packaging. To download a copy of WEN’s Packaging Action Kit, see our Resources page.

In Tower Hamlets, 6 million milk bottles are thrown away and end up in landfill every year. Empty Isn't The End was a partnership between WEN, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Dairy Crest and the East London Mosque Trust

The project included a borough-wide awareness campaign in Summer 2004 and participation by more than 60 shopkeepers who kept a close eye on the number of milk bottles being returned. Although the trial was too small to have lasting effect we concluded that returnable glass milk bottles remain a viable way both to prevent waste and boost local economies. We recommend a larger trial and more publicity to encourage people into the milk bottle habit.

An outline of the project and the final report are available for download from our Resources page.

WEN has a long history of influencing policy at the local and national level. In the past, we’ve given advice and information to local and national government on waste audits, computer re-use and paper recycling. In 1998, we initiated the Waste Minimisation Act, which provided councils with the powers to introduce practical waste prevention measures.

More recently we’ve input to the European Union's Thematic Waste Strategy and the Mayor’s Waste Management Strategy (2003). Our work on real nappies has brought about change at the government level and the Waste Resources and Action Programme (WRAP) is now working to convert 155,000 households to real nappy use by 2006. For more information about WRAP, please visit: www.wrap.org.uk