In conversation with a “Reclaim our Lane” member Laura Hunter. “Dazing Soul”, a sustainable influencer, and Craig from Battlefield Restoration about what they do individually to improve our lanes, items and the sustainable methods they practise to inspire the next generation.
Reclaim Our Lane was started in the Southside of Glasgow, with the goal of stopping the ongoing fly-tipping in a lane. The “lane” is a term used by the locals to address the environmental issues in their own street. Laura Hunter, who has lived in Glasgow since 1995, is leading the way forward for the initiative. She remains ambitious about the removal of rubbish in the lanes, raising awareness and supporting a collective of neighbours to raise funds. The most hazardous thing that has been dumped by tradesmen is asbestos, which is the lane’s responsibility to have removed, however this involves several steps which can take months or years to accomplish. The main issue that remains is the funding to be able to support the efforts Laura has put into her lane and her neighbours. Suri, a sustainable lifestyle influencer known as Dazing Soul, says that what motivated her to practice sustainable initiatives was “a mix of my love for nature and finding out the damage we were doing to it”.
The lanes are considered private land, however according to Laura, her lane has been accessible to the general public “for over 145 years”. The problem in Laura’s Lane is that one side of the block has landlord properties so there is more of a chance of refurbishment, unfortunately leading to more rubbish in their beloved lane. On one occasion, a neighbour was parking in his space and noticed a group of tradesmen, assuming that they were working. Returning a few minutes later to find that asbestos had been left behind. Laura says that public health Scotland require “a vehicle registration number and their details to report it as an environmental crime”. Without this, they will not investigate it further. “It is a big expense for the neighbours” as Laura exclaims “it takes £2000 to get it responsibly removed”. Once again, it has been left to the residents to resolve the issue. A city as big as Glasgow, where fly-tipping is not the only issue and criminal activity is much higher, the council is “outstretched, [has] limited resources and [southside] is not an area of deprivation. “I suppose it’s about getting everyone together to get the best outcome” says Laura. It is important along with that, to also consider what you are buying yourself, it’s “expensive to have a conscience” nowadays.
“We’re told that we’re wasting our time recycling, and only 9% of it gets responsibly dealt with”. Laura’s and the neighbour’s initiatives and motivations that are essential in pushing their lane be rubbish-free. From Laura’s perspective, composting everything from her cupboard that can be, is a necessity. For Suri, aiming to “shop local produce” and preventing the use of plastic packaging is essential. What she uses daily is either recycled or reusable. She has been thrifting and buying second hand clothing for the last six years. It is disheartening for Laura to know that the only way the council can assist is by serving an “abatement notice”, which is “effectively penalising everyone for other people’s rubbish”. There is also a “rollout” for bins on the streets instead of back gardens for each building, so there is more of an opportunity and space for rubbish to be put where it is meant to be. The landfill in Polmadie would give everyone a realisation and “it would register what’s actually happening with the amount of stuff we’re all consuming”. The final straw for Laura was when her next-door neighbour could not garden anymore, because of the asbestos. In reality “people don’t take into consideration the environment and the people that live there” and that’s what led Laura to make a change.
Craig from Battlefield Restoration took inspiration from New Zealand’s “dumpster shops” in starting his own restoration shop in the Southside of Glasgow. The dumpster shops are situated at landfills where people can dispose of items and pass them onto staff members who will sell them. “Retail is a part of the community’s livelihood” Craig says as well as “shops should be more than a transactional place” for people. It’s a “circular use of produce or items” Craig believes in this concept of having an item that can no longer be used yet being able to make someone happy or find value in once restored. Craig has spent most of his years working as an engineer so this was a natural process to him knowing that if he would save enough, he could do this work permanently. Craig confirmed. He brought “the idea of bringing things back to life” within the repair aspect of the shop, which took him around 6 months to complete. The important aspect that Craig was hoping to bring from his trip to New Zealand was that “we no longer make stuff in the UK and that most things are imported and that makes huge amount of environmental damage” and by reusing an item, with Craig’s help, we can be closer to achieving a freer carbon footprint community.
There are several points to consider before a repair. You need to think “can I sell it for more?” and “will it last a second time?”. Some items will particularly not be in Craig’s skillset to fix, but he points out that for an item to be repaired a second time we need to consider these points before going ahead. Sometimes, when an item is beyond repair as it once was, it can be stripped down to certain “component parts of it or the materials” which can then be used for another item. “Ikea furniture is the other opposite of it. It’s under engineered and you strip it back and you have nothing, you just come to air eventually” highlights Craig. This leads to a very memorable project he has worked on, which were cinema seats from the 1950’s from Orkney, which were gifted to him by a customer. It was surprising how “it was quality [material so] I could do something with it 20 years later. The rubber in the seats has “survived about 60-70 years”, which would not be the case nowadays. It is the mindset of this customer that should be the case for everyone, it’s about the acknowledgment rather than an exchange of a transaction.
“In the 1900’s the UK was producing 20 times CO2 as China and now in the 2020’s China produces probably about 40 times as much as the UK if not even more” Craig confirms that the way of transport for an item, is one of the bigger issues we are not facing. One click on Amazon, and it gets delivered to our doors, the experience of shopping has lost its touch. With one click we are adding to our carbon footprint. “Glasgow used to be a centre of manufacturing; it could be a centre of restoration now” Craig says, but people are at the forefront of that decision. “We have green fingers but not green hands” and there is still opportunity if people are willing to take the leap.
