Farbez Uddin outside Bun & Sum’s new branch in Hackney. Pic: Megan Rickard  He has only been in the business for three years and began selling his food on an industrial estate in Bow, but Bun & Sum owner Farbez Uddin, best known for his LA-style smash burgers, is now Burger Chef of the Year 2024. In the National Burger Awards 2024, Uddin, who runs two outlets in east London with plans to create two more new branches, won the award for his ‘George Motz Oklahoma Smash’ burger. He had arrived at the event not expecting to win anything being up against “bigger brands” “We stood right ..read more

Bounded by tree-lined lanes and open, green fields stands a massive grey cube with towering chimneys. Plumes of smoke emerge from the stacks before vanishing against the sky. This is the Beddington Energy Recovery Facility (ERF), run by waste management company, Viridor, and it generates energy from waste collected, in part, from the borough of Croydon. It appears to be an ideal solution to keeping rubbish out of landfills. The Beddington ERF claims it is safe. But is this true, or is it greenwashing? How can concerned local residents spot the difference? Greenwashing is a phenomenon that perv ..read more

Name: Rebecca Atherton Age: 35 Borough: Croydon Occupation: co-director of Turf (Croydon’s homegrown artist space), organiser of Greening: the town in which we grew Top Tip: “Think about how we can reconnect ourselves to nature so that people care. You can’t care about something that you never see.” Tell us about the sustainability challenge you’re working on. I organise the Greening: the town in which we grew workshop, which is about using the persistence of nature as a metaphor for how people can resist and persist in the borough, despite all the challenges that we face. We wal ..read more

Earth Day comes around every year on April 22 and has been celebrated since 1970. The first event was organised by Senator Nelson, a US representative keen to improve protections for the natural world, and since then, the campaign has grown globally to address inequalities from pollution to the climate crisis. Today, Earth Day is an opportunity to slow down, reflect on our actions, and get stuck into a whole host of individual and collective celebrations. The theme for 2024 is “Planet vs Plastics”, and the big message is for a 60% reduction in the production of plastics by 2040. To learn how y ..read more

Bounded by tree-lined lanes and open, green fields stands a massive grey cube with towering chimneys. Plumes of smoke emerge from the stacks before vanishing against the sky. This is the Beddington Energy Recovery Facility (ERF), run by waste management company, Viridor, and it generates energy from waste collected, in part, from the borough of Croydon. It appears to be an ideal solution to keeping rubbish out of landfills. The Beddington ERF claims it is safe. But is this true, or is it greenwashing? How can concerned local residents spot the difference? Greenwashing is a phenomenon that ..read more

Earth Day should be a celebration, an opportunity to marvel at our extraordinary world and all its complexity, colour and variety. Yet, for as long as we can remember the media, educators and corporate narratives have been rolling out worn tropes such as “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”, blaming individuals, and bombarding us with tales of disaster and doom. It’s like the climate conversation is in its teenage phase. It’s tired, it’s bored, and it’s anxious. This series aims to guide environmental reactions away from fatigue and fear, and coax the narrative out of its sulky bedroom, to think about bri ..read more

Name: Aneeta Patel Age: 48 Borough: Tower Hamlets Occupation: communications, fundraising and operations manager at Action Village India; WasteEnders; and Knitting SOS Top Tip: “Do what you can and if today wasn’t a good decision day, then maybe tomorrow will be.” Tell us about the sustainability challenge you’re working on? Climate anxiety is a thing for so many of us and for me, it came to a head when I was having cancer treatment in 2019. I became very aware of all the plastic waste that was being used in my treatment – which obviously had to be done for safety – and then, be ..read more

Name: Rebecca Atherton Age: 35 Borough: Croydon Occupation: co-director of Turf (Croydon’s homegrown artist space), organiser of Greening: the town in which we grew Top Tip: “Think about how we can reconnect ourselves to nature so that people care. You can’t care about something that you never see.” Tell us about the sustainability challenge you’re working on. I organise the Greening: the town in which we grew workshop, which is about using the persistence of nature as a metaphor for how people can resist and persist in the borough, despite all the challenges that we face. We wal ..read more

Kate Balding · Episode 3 The Hotline Welcome to The Hotline, the 3-part mini-series answering environmental questions coming out of Lewisham, Croydon, Tower Hamlets and Hackney. Show notes: To start the episode we discussed how you can get involved in local environmental decision-making. To make sure you don’t miss an opportunity to have your voice heard, check out the council meeting calendars for Lewisham, Tower Hamlets, Croydon and Hackney. Alternatively, the Count Us in Climate Action Organisation and Friends of the Earth have their own communities where you can get involved in worldwide ..read more

In a small Hackney cinema, a woman takes a roll call from a platform covered in leaves. Except this register is not for any human attendees: “Fassett Square E8, horse chestnut, damage in wall, fell and grind; Parkholme Road E8, replace sweet chestnut in front garden with a magnolia tree, fell; Osbaldeston Road N16, London plane tree and small self-seeded sycamore sapling, fell and replant once the garden has been landscaped…” The names correspond with trees due to be felled by the council and removed from Hackney’s streets. For the #NoticeThisTree campaign, the list doubles as a eulogy, a smal ..read more