The new Meanwood Road Waste Sorting Site, the first of its kind in Leeds, is the result of a 600,000 revamp of the former civic amenity site, which has been redesigned to make it as easy as possible for people to recycle their waste.
The waste site has been closed since last Autumn while refurbishment work was carried out and has just been officially reopened by Councillor Alec Hudson who has responsibility for resources and performance management. The site has now been designed to allow easy traffic flow, to cut queuing time for people driving through the site and features purpose-built unloading areas as well as a range of individual containers so that people can separate materials for recycling.
Collection points or containers are provided for:
- timber, garden waste, metal, cardboard, plastic, soil, bricks and rubble
- glass, paper, textiles and shoes, oil, paint and books
- mobile phones, spectacles, ink cartridges, postage stamps, greetings cards, tin foil and batteries
- electrical goods, car batteries and gas containers
A team of specialist operatives is on site to help the public separate their materials for recycling into the appropriate containers and to tell customers about the latest developments. And, boards have been put up with slogans to drive home the recycling message. The site will be open in spring and summer from 9am to 5pm and in autumn and winter from 9am to 4pm.
Councillor Hudson said: “Leeds City currently recycles about 10% of household waste, but we aim to increase these levels over the next four years, for the benefit of our environment and we have set ourselves an ambitious target of 25% by 2005. We all have a part to play in protecting our environment and we hope this specialist centre will make it easier for the whole community to get on board by recycling as much waste as they possibly can.
“We all have a part to play in protecting our environment and we hope this new specialist centre will make it easier for the whole community to get on board recycling as much waste as they possibly can.”
The development of the Meanwood Road site is one of a number of initiatives by Leeds City Council to increase recycling. These include: more frequent kerbside sort bin collections with an extra 40,000 being provided this year; partnerships in developing community glass recycling schemes; and setting up new outlets for recycled materials.
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