Getting Involved

What Are The Issues?
There are many people living and working within the Penwith District who care deeply about our natural environment, its protection and its future well being. In our modern industrialised world, the natural environment suffers constant bombardment from various directions. In addition to the waste produced from agriculture and industry, through all our individual consumerist habits, for example, we create varying amounts of waste from our weekly shopping and the fuel we burn in our homes and our cars.  

This pressure on the environment is countered to some extent by international legislation and government directives. However in order to compensate for the increasing damage our lifestyles cause, we need also to take responsibility and power as individuals and redress the balance in our daily lives.

What Can I Do?
There are many ways in which we can do this, for example:
* We can examine our shopping habits, and try to reduce the amount of packaging we take home with our purchases.

* We can use cloth or other permanent bags to carry our shopping and refuse to accept plastic bags

* What packaging we do take home we can separate at home and recycle.

* We can rinse out and re-use any plastic bags we do take home

* We can buy locally produced food and other items to reduce transport costs and pressure on the environment

* We can use public transport, bicycles, car sharing, etc, whenever possible.

* We can buy environmentally sensitive products, cleaning products, office supplies, paper, etc

* We can always use both sides of pieces of paper

* We can compost our garden and kitchen waste

Who Is making A Difference?
Another way of potentially making a difference, both to the local environment and to the wider legislative bodies, in local and national government is to become involved with environmental groups. There are those who work on wider issues, such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, and also local environmental groups such as ourselves, PEN who tackle the local aspects
of environmental issues, often alongside national and international organizations.

For example, in our work on the Waste issue PEN is an active member of the Cornwall Sustainable Waste Network, and we work closely alongside Friends of the Earth.
Penwith Environmental Network has a very active membership and is currently following various funding streams to try to expand our capabilities. At present, we run purely on a voluntary basis, in issue-based working groups, with monthly meetings to keep everyone informed of progress. Although there is a great deal of good work being done by the active membership, we have plenty
of new projects and existing groups always benefit from extra help.

Therefore, if you feel motivated on any particular issue, or simply wish to be involved with a network of people working towards similar aims, to promote and educate the public in all matters relating to the natural environment and its preservation, then come along to our monthly meeting.

You can contact us.