Eddy's Good News: Food waste recycling bins and elderly women combating loneliness

Virgin Radio

19 Jun 2023, 09:08

Monday 19th June 2023

Inspiring news from South Korea who have the most hi tech food waste management system in the world, and no food landfills!

Say annyeong haseyo to South Korea who made putting food into landfills illegal in 2005 and implemented a mind blowing system where everybody’s food scraps are collected then turned into useful stuff and used to heat thousands of homes!

South Korea’s mountainous terrain makes it hard to have landfills so this circular system works brilliantly. They have hi-tech food disposal machines outside apartments and everyone has a keycard for them. The food waste is then collected, sorted, all the water is squeezed out, then it’s turned into super nutritious animal food and fertiliser perfect for poultry. They also have anaerobic digesters which turn scraps into biogas that heats many thousands of homes. Impressively all the water needed for the process comes from the stuff they squeezed out earlier. It’s so impressive that New York City are looking to implement a similar system.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

After last week’s focus on a co-living community in Somerset that’s not suitable for old people, we shift our focus to an inspiring community of women who live together in London.

With our population ageing and loneliness emerging as a real problem, could co-living be the answer for some? It certainly looks that way as we say hello to New Ground, a very modern type of commune in South London for women only.

It was started in 1998, as Jude Tisdall, one of the residents told Positive News: It’s like moving in with a partner earlier on in life, except this is moving in with 25 partners, and not always easy to navigate, but as they always say the positives outweigh the negatives massively. There haven’t been any serious fallouts, but Jude concedes “we don’t always agree. We’re all feisty, independent women – this wouldn’t have happened if we weren’t.” There are 25 apartments, 8 of them are social housing, communal gardens, a flat where relatives can stay and a shared house for get togethers, film nights, classes and groups. The oldest is 95, the youngest is 53, they all help and support each other and they want to inspire local councils to look at this as a modern model and no brainer for people to feel in control of their latter life.

Via: positive.news