The Recycling Locator, displayed on the Recycle Now website, allows residents to find out information about what can be accepted in their local kerbside collections and also at bring bank sites.
The tool – which was created with involvement from Waste Awareness Wales, WRAP Northern Ireland and Valpak, holds information on bespoke kerbside and bring bank collections from across all parts of the UK.
To access information, householders will need to input their postcode, town or the material type they wish to find information about into the Recycling Locator.
The tool then provides a comprehensive list of material eligible for collections – alongside images of the corresponding containers used to collect the recyclables.
The new locator also holds any special instructions, such as ‘fold cardboard’ or ‘squash bottles’, which WRAP hopes will reduce confusion among householders. In order to be as versatile as possible, the locator works across PCs, laptops and mobile devices, from smart phones to tablets.
Marcus Gover, director at WRAP, said: “We know from our recent ‘Barriers to recycling at home’ report and 3Rs (Recycling, Re-use, Repair) Tracking survey that householders may require some extra guidance when recycling. We hope that the new Recycling Locator will clarify what is accepted and reduce the confusion of recycling certain materials.
“The Recycling Locator is a simple and effective tool that householders can access directly, so we’re encouraging partners to add it to their website and local authorities to keep changes to their services up to date via LARSU.”
Widget
Partners such as local authorities and retailers will also be able to embed the locator on to their own website via a web widget – a move that has been endorsed by Sainsbury’s, which has launched the widget on its corporate website.
Britvic, The British Soft Drinks Association and The Co-operative will also be promoting the locator on their websites.
And, the locator has been welcomed by the West London Waste Authority, FCC Environment and the On-Pack Recycling Label scheme, which plans to put the widget on its own website and encourage members to do the same.
The Recycling Locator replaces WRAP’s previous postcode locator tool, created in 2004 for the Recycle Now website to identify the nearest recycling services. The previous tool has continued to attract around 1.5 million users in the last five years.
Future plans for the Recycling Locator include displaying information for recycling water filters, light bulbs and ink cartridges and where to donate items of furniture for re-use.
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