Two young children in red aprons holding a certificate

Communication Materials for Community Groups

28 Feb 23 7 minutes

Zero Waste Scotland supports the work of community groups that aim to reach a wide audience of people with key messages on sustainable consumption and the climate crisis.

Zero Waste Scotland recognises that behaviour change on issues around waste can often be most effectively achieved through community engagement at a local level.

We have a range of materials, training and support available to help you take action on waste in your community.

Highland Community Composting Resource

Zero Waste Scotland has been working in partnership with the Highland Good Food Partnership and The Highland Council to develop a Community Composting Resource for communities in the Highlands that are interested in starting or further developing community composting projects.

The resource provides a step-by-step guide to composting, taking users through everything they would need to consider if looking to set up a community composting project.

Community composting provides a mechanism to deal with materials locally. Dealing with green waste and food waste at a local level avoids waste streams from being hauled long distances for disposal and provides a substitute to buying expensive and sometimes environmentally damaging composts (in particular if containing peat).

Highland Community Composting Resource

Food Waste – ‘Love Food Hate Waste’

The Love Food Hate Waste materials are designed to get across key messages about the easiest ways for people to reduce the amount of food they waste in a really clear and motivating way.

Our suite of materials includes:

‘What’s in your kitchen recipe collection – recipes from around Scotland for using up leftover food, including information leaflets, and recipe cards
Food Waste and Home Composting Toolkit - this combined food waste and home composting toolkit contains associated leaflets, posters, social media posts, press releases and an infographic.
Education Pack - this is an interdisciplinary learning pack for all of primary and early secondary levels. The activities, PowerPoints and resources can be used in or outside the classroom by anyone who works with young people.
Website - the Love Food Hate Waste Scotland website has a huge range of recipes for using up leftovers, plus great information, for example on portioning and planning to reduce food waste.
Facebook – the Love Food Hate Waste Scotland Facebook page is an active and engaging page for sharing ideas and promoting food waste events and projects.
One month food waste challenge - designed for organisations across Scotland's food and drink sector (but you could adapt it to suit other organisations) who are keen to make a difference to the planet. TheFood Waste Challenge provides you with a simple 4-step environmental guide.

Love Food Hate Waste Scotland Food Waste and Home Composting Toolkit

Reuse

The reuse materials are designed to raise awareness and change behaviour around reuse. Consumer research shows that people often don’t consider the difference between reuse and recycling, and therefore don’t think about the many additional environmental and social benefits of reuse when disposing of items.

Session guides - there is also a suite of guides for running different reuse workshop sessions which are ideal for community engagement.
How-to guides – there is also a series of ‘how-to’ guides for reuse activities such as upcycling workshops, repair workshops, swish/swap shops and more.
Repair and Sharing Guide - there is also a detailed Repair and Sharing Guide, featuring in-depth case studies, hints and tips from several successful community reuse projects from around the UK focusing on repairing and sharing items.
Upcycling – read some of our easy upcycling ideas.

Reusable Period Products

The average woman will dispose of 11,000 period products in her lifetime – most of which are made from plastics and synthetic materials. #TrialPeriod aims to raise awareness of the issue and provide useful information on what the alternatives are.

Our article on the Trial Period campaign provides information on why single-use period products are a concern and what the alternatives are.
Partners site – the partners site is free to access and provides useful downloadable resources for you to use to promote reusable alternatives. This includes posters, social media graphics, an email signature and mirror vinyl.