News in Brief

Canvassers are to knock on 66,000 doors in Milton Keynes over the next few months to bring the waste minimisation and recycling message to residents.

The 100,000 recycling monitoring and promotional canvassing project is jointly funded by Milton Keynes council and Cory Environmental through the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme. It follows the introduction of weekly kerbside recycling collections in Milton Keynes and Cory's contract to run the city's Materials Recycling Facility (see letsrecycle.com story)

Tom Nell, Director, Cory Environmental said: “This project is an effective method of going out and actually talking to the people of MK about reducing, reusing and recycling their waste so we can continue to see some impressive recycling results in Milton Keynes.”

The Sofa Project has appealed to businesses to help it raise 10,000 to improve its small fleet of collection vehicles.

The Bristol-based community re-use scheme has four second hand vans, which collect up to 100 items a day to be sold to low income households. The loss of one vehicle will mean losing 7,200 items in the rest of this year.

“Because of what we do and the process that we do, to keep the furniture affordable, we can't really become self-sufficient,” said Alex Currie, marketing officer at the project, said. “We actually have to replace a van or maybe two. We would like to appeal to businesses that can help us raise enough money.”

The Sofa Project can be contacted on 0117 9543575.

Schoolchildren in Essex have come up with a novel concept to promote the recycling and waste minimisation message: goats.

Pupils in year nine at the Deanes School in Essex won their class competition with a poster publicising the simple slogan: “Buy a goat – they eat everything.”

While the exercise had a humorous touch, it formed an important part of an Industry Day event which brought the message of responsible waste management to the students, who will be taking their GCSEs next year.