Waste & Recycling

If everyone in the world was as wasteful as we are in the UK we would need 8 worlds to keep going

New Recycling Facility

Update

February 2011

Recycling in Leighton Buzzard Town Centre

The recycling bank that South Beds FoE purchased via a grant last year for the town council has been in use for a year now.

The public continue to put drinks cans and plastic bottles into litter bins. The council’s refuse collection contractor Verdant collect this waste and take it to landfill so we have an ongoing campaign to ask those who use the park to recycle into the bank. Annie Taylor has leaflets that she distributes to parents using the playground. She has also been given the key to the unit so that it can be checked for contamination before collection. And, displaying an extraordinary lack of self-image, she makes daily sweeps of the parks and town to collect littered drinks cans and plastic bottles. Our long-term goal is to apply for another grant next year for a second recycling bank for Mentmore Park.

New Recycling Facility

Operational from 2010

South Beds Friends of the Earth obtain £1200 of funding for a Recycling Unit for Parsons Close Recreation Ground

After six months of research and discussions with the Town Council and Central Bedfordshire, South Bedfordshire Friends of the Earth have been successful with their grant application to Wixamtree Trust for approx £1200 for a recycling centre in Parsons Close Recreational Ground.

Domestic recycling is increasingly successful in Leighton Linslade, but plastic bottles and aluminium cans in the parks and the town centre are not sorted and recycled and but instead are just sent to landfill. This grant will provide a receptacle similar to a litter bin which will have separate compartments for plastic bottles and aluminium cans and from which Central Bedfordshire will collect and take to be recycled.

With a recycling centre for plastic bottles and aluminium drink cans we hope to encourage residents and shopkeepers to use this facility to decrease our town’s contribution to landfill. The town council are helping with the installation and central Bedfordshire are collecting from it, but neither council had the resources in theses cash strapped times to pay for the actual recycling centre. Therefore we applied for the grant from the Wixamtree Trust and are delighted that we have been given it.

Although this was pretty much the baby of South Beds FoE members Annie and Victoria, we should thank Debbie and Barry from the Town Council along with Cllr Adam Fahn all of whom offered much needed support to get the idea approved.

Environment Agency - What's in Your Backyard? type in your postcode on site

Recycling: facts & figures

Annually, the average household produces around a tonne of waste. That means every 5 households throw away the equivalent in weight to one elephant - every year!
The UK has one of Europe's lowest glass recycling rates. Glass can be recycled infinitely
25 plastic bottles can be recycled to make a cosy fleece top
A vending cup can be made into a pencil or a pen
Steel cans containing anything from baked beans to fruit cocktail, from pet food to soup are used to make new cars and bridges
Recycled paper can become new newspapers and magazines, as well as paper packaging
Around 20,000 tonnes of aluminium foil packaging (worth £8 million) is wasted each year. Only 3,000 tonnes is recycled
Recycling aluminium can bring energy savings of up to 95% and produce 95% less greenhouse gas emissions than when it is produced from raw materials
Plastic bags sent to landfill take around 500 years to decay. Many shops offer reusable bags that can be replaced for free when worn, or you could invest in a few sturdy bags or boxes
Plastic bags can be recycled into garden furniture, decking and fencing

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