Rochdale Rotary wins the Rodney Huggins Environment Award 2010

David Acton with Rotarians Elizabeth Tatman of District 1280 and Rochdale President Elvet Smith

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Rochdale Rotary Club was awarded The Rodney Huggins Environment Award on the 18 April at the Rotary International of Great Britain and Ireland (RIBI) Annual conference at Bournemouth.

The vertically aligned propagating grow bag, developed by Rotarian David Acton, is extremely space and water saving and is ideal for small garden areas and arid regions of the world.

His ideas have grown into a full Urban Garden space and water saving project with easily extended multiple grow bag systems. The ideas are simple but innovative; reduce evaporation of water, reduce the use of large areas of soil and space. Use space upwards rather than sideways. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon have come to Rochdale!

President of RIBI David Fowler was the first to congratulate the Rochdale Club and David at a special awards ceremony on the Final Plenary session of the Conference. District 1280 Governor Elizabeth Tatman has promised to spread the news of the system to Rotarians around the world.

There was great interest from the 1800 attendees of the Conference from all over Great Britain and Ireland. Further development of the system is planned and there are trials going on in Africa where water conservation is paramount.

UrbanFarm® Planters are inexpensive, flexible horticultural growing containers. Using simple science and developed through intensive brainstorming, they are highly conservative of water and space, making them ideal for countries with arid climates and city growing where space is at a premium.

The concept is now ready to be shared with interested parties – Councils, Urban Farms, Community Enterprises, 'Concrete' Allotments (that being hard standing/waste land), schools, disabled and older people.

www.urbanfarmplanters.co.uk  

The Rodney Huggins Environment Award is an annual competition to celebrate environmental achievements by Rotarians, at District or Club level, and also within schools and youth organisations in the local community. Winners receive a cash bursary to help continue their work and prizes are presented at the RIBI Conference.