Recycling Roundup 9th October

Recycling Roundup 9^th October

A recycling roadshow is aiming to encourage residents in Havering to recycle more. Stalls are being set up in the town’s market place and a local Tesco store as part national Recycling Week, and one of the messages the event hopes to give people is exactly how recycling can benefit the planet. One of the facts they’ll be telling people is that recycling just 20 plastic bottles would make enough material to make a football shirt. Recycling just a few extra items at home can really make a difference. The campaign will advise people how easy it is to make recycling part of your daily routine, by doing something as easy as putting a recycling bag in their bathroom. The campaign is part of an overall strategy to help London meet a 65% recycling target by 2030.

Aberdeen councils have been criticised for their below average recycling rates. According to the latest figures, Aberdeen City Council is now in the bottom 10 local authorities for recycling, achieving a recycling rate of only 39% and sending a huge 60% of its waste to landfill. Aberdeenshire didn’t fare much better, and only managed to recycle 43.5% of its rubbish, a tiny improvement of 0.2% on the previous year. It sent 55% of its waste to landfill.

Now both councils have launched recycling programmes involving new recycling bins to boost their rates, as the Scottish government have just announced tougher recycling targets. They have also signed up to a scheme where landfill waste will be incinerated to produce energy from 2019.

MPs have led calls for any recycling schemes to be simple, and for promised collections to run on time and be adequate for residents. They say that many people have complained to them about late or even missed waste collections.

Both Aberdeen councils say that they have overhauled their waste management systems, despite huge budget cuts, and that some of the responsibility lies with residents to change their recycling habits.

Tesco is set to remove the recycling banks at its Cirencester store after repeated episodes of fly-tipping. Staff have tried to keep the area clear of rubbish, but it has become an increasing problem, and too much to handle for Tesco. The company have apologised to customers who were using the banks responsibly, but they felt like they had no option to remove the banks following repeated incidents of rubbish being strewn on the ground around the bins, and bin bags being piled next to recycling bins when they were full.