Rotherham community recyclers in 300,000 lottery award

Creation Recycling has won 299,837 from the lottery's Community Recycling and Economic Development (CRED) programme.

The grant will allow the group to increase the amount and range of materials diverted away from landfill, establish an awareness-raising programme and provide local training and employment opportunities for unemployed people.

The service will be launched at the end of September, and will see the community group using pedestrian-controlled vehicles to collect dry recyclables including paper and glass.

Creation Recycling's chief executive, Tony Clabby, said: “This project is one of those rare 'win-win' situations. Creative Recycling will prove the worth of social enterprise in delivering front line services, especially recycling, where they can gain greater participation rates in hard-to-reach, disadvantaged communities.”

Residents in Rotherham produce 120,000 tonnes of household waste each year. The “majority” of the borough's 108,000 households are already provided by the council with an alternate-week blue box kerbside collection scheme for glass, cans and textiles. About 96% of households are given a blue bag scheme to collect paper for recycling. Residents have wheeled bins for their general refuse.

The borough recycled 3,600 tonnes of paper last year (10% of the paper thrown away in the borough) as well as 700 tonnes of glass (7%) while only 4% of waste textiles were recycled and 1% of cans were recycled in the borough in 2003.

About 12,000 households in Rotherham began a new green waste collection service using wheeled bins in spring of this year, funded by Defra's waste fund.

Lottery
Managed by the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts on behalf of the national lottery, the CRED programme is providing 36.5 million to community recycling projects in England. So far, it has awarded over 1.3 million to recycling and composting projects in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

Vanessa Druett, Yorkshire and Humber regional manager for the Big Lottery Fund, said: “The Fund is delighted to be supporting the introduction of such a well-needed scheme with both social and environmental benefits – ploughing money straight back into the heart of communities.”