The Power of We

A rather ungrammatical title for a post about something that really is true.

Animal welfare won't improve unless WE do something about it.

James: in a bit of bother with a collapsible tunnel toy

None of us can do everything; all of us can do something.

Working together, we can achieve far more than we can individually.

The RSPCA is not perfect, but  animal lovers who are prepared to accept the need for give and take can gain a much more powerful voice for animals than as lone voices.

If you want animals to have better lives, please consider RSPCA membership. Membership adds your voice to the power of RSPCA campaigns, and it will also give you the right to vote in branch and national trustee elections.

If you have time, please consider whether you might be able to help our branch as a volunteer, or by joining the branch committee as a trustee.

Blog Action Day 2009: Did you know?

Buying secondhand from charity shops and donating unwanted items instead of chucking them in the bin is a way to reduce your carbon footprint.

In the UK, between 4 and 5% of domestic waste is made up of clothing and other textiles. About 25% of this is recycled by charities and their associated trading companies.

The Salvation Army Trading Company recently sponsored research to find the energy used by reuse/recycling of textile items and whether this resulted in net energy saving benefit (and hence reduced carbon emission).

The energy footprint of textiles was estimated using a streamlined life cycle assessment which was restricted in scope in order to target specific aspects of the footprint, in this case energy consumption.

Taking into account extraction of resources, manufacture of materials, electricity generation, clothing collection, processing and distribution and final disposal of wastes it was shown that for every kilogram of raw cotton replaced by use of second hand clothing approximately 65 kWh is saved, and for every kilogram of polyester around 90 kWh is saved. Hence, reuse and recycling of donated clothing results in reduced carbon emissions in comparison to purchasing new clothing made from raw materials.

(Life cycle assessment for reuse/recycling of donated waste textiles compared to use of virgin material: An UK energy saving perspective Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Volume 46, Issue 1, January 2006, Pages 94-103. Anne C. Woolridge, Garth D. Ward, Paul S. Phillips, Michael Collins and Simon Gandy)

Blog Action Day 08 - Poverty

The Cambridge Clinic

The RSPCA is not simply "the animal police". With 34 clinics and 172 branches which offer financial help for owners on low incomes, we are at least as much about helping owners to keep their animals and care for them properly as we are about preventing bad or incompetent owners from having animals.

The Cambridge RSPCA clinic at 1 Pool Way, Whitehill Road, Cambridge is open for general treatments on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and on Wednesdays for vaccinations, pre-neutering checks and stitch removals. We start booking people in at roughly 8.30 a.m. and don't accept any further bookings for the morning at 10.30 a.m. The vets begin examining animals just after 9 am.

Treatments are not free, but cost roughly a third of what a private vet would have to charge, and we accept anyone on means tested state benefits or very low income (defined as less than £200 per week household income). Proof of income status must be shown at each visit.