Residents urged to “Love Liverpool” in recycling campaign

The city council took the opportunity to launch its biggest-ever recycling campaign as the city's festive lights were switched on by Sir Steve Redgrave in front of the newly refurbished St George's Hall last week.

” Love Liverpool is all about the people of Liverpool taking more pride in their city.“
– Mike Storey, Liverpool council leader
The campaign will see Liverpool householders encouraged to recycle their paper, cans, glass bottles and jars. The campaign will include a series of events throughout 2006, also targetting problems like litter and graffiti.

The leader of the city council, Cllr Mike Storey, said: “Love Liverpool is all about the people of Liverpool taking more pride in their city and making it a more attractive place for everyone who lives here and the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come to Liverpool each year.”

Liverpool – to be European City of Culture in 2008 – recycles about 8% of its household waste at the moment, a level that must reach 15% to meet government targets.

Christmas
Householders can produce double the normal amount of waste over Christmas, and Liverpool will be running extra collections over the festive period with taxis and buses emblazoned with the “Love Liverpool” message.

Cllr Richard Oglethorpe, who holds the recycling portfolio at the city council, said: “There's no excuse for not recycling this Christmas. We'll be reminding people to Love Liverpool with recycling messages on billboards and taxis, and school visits where we'll educate young people about how important our environment is.”

Cllr Oglethorpe has already dressed up as a green Santa to visit local primary schools to spread the recycling message.

The city's recycling services are run by Abitibi-Consolidated Recycling Europe, which holds the current contract until 2008, while Onyx runs waste collection services on a contract to run until October 2006. A multi-material kerbside recycling scheme is offered to all households, with the service currently being rolled out to multi-occupancy properties in the city.

Liverpool is one of the five councils within the Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority, which is in the early stages of procuring a new long-term public-private waste contract for recycling and waste services.