Recycle Week round-up

On-the-go recycling bins installed across Scotland

The new bins form part of a 250,000 investment from Zero Waste Scotland to improve recycling outside of the home, and allow the public to recycle a range of materials including newspapers, plastic bottles and aluminium drinks cans.

Iain Gulland, director of Zero Waste Scotland, said: Many of the items that end up in litter bins such as newspapers and drinks bottles can be easily recycled. Not only is this better for the environment, theres real value left in the goods we throw away. High quality plastic bottles can be sold at over 190 per tonne, so throwing them away to landfill is a lost business opportunity.

Ultimately, we want to make it easy to recycle, whether at home, at work or out and about. These new facilities will make it easy to recycle in some of the countrys busiest and most popular public areas.

Recycling calendars and WEEE bring banks in Leeds

Leeds city council has also launched a number of initiatives to coincide with the start of Recycle Week, including sending out 300,000 recycling calendars to homes across the city. The calendars inform residents about collection dates for their recycling bins until December 2013.

The council has also set up eight on-street recycling banks for small electrical items at locations across the city and has reduced the price of compost bins for residents looking to recycle green waste.

Councillor Mark Dobson, executive member for the environment, said: The feedback we get shows that people have a real appetite for recycling. Residents put in a massive amount of work, sorting and filling up their green bins and we continue to be grateful for their efforts.

Reducing what we send to landfill requires a real team effort, so were constantly looking at the best way to match peoples willingness to maximise the amount and range of things we recycle to the services we offer.

Children discover recycling at Southwark waste facility

Veolia Environmental Services is inviting local school groups to visit its new 60 million Integrated Waste Management Facility in Southwark, to learn about recycling and what happens to waste that arrives at the facility.

The school groups are given the opportunity to learn hands-on using the interactive recycling displays at the facilitys Recycling Discovery Centre, designed by the team responsible for many of the interactive exhibits at the Science Museum.

They will also get to see a materials recovery facility (MRF) in action, and see the state of the art sorting technology including optical sorters, magnets and electric currents which sift through around 25 tonnes of material per hour.

Fabrice Bouchon, general manager for Veolia Environmental Services in Southwark, said: What happens here on site really is something to see. I would urge all primary schools and community groups to arrange a visit as soon as possible and well be opening our doors again in September for Open House weekend, so we hope to see many more of our neighbours then, in the meantime I hope that everyone will keep up the good work and continue sending their paper, glass, plastic, cans and cartons to us.