New bins will save thousands of pounds a year

Croydon Council has introduced new recycling bins which it says will save the authority £10,000 a year.

At present, 100 tonnes of waste a year are being sent to the landfill from the borough. The 14 bins are being put in key locations in the area where people are able to separate their magazines, newspapers, plastic and glass bottles, and cans. .

A council spokesman said: “We are emptying hundreds of tonnes of waste bins a year. We will do anything to separate out the recyclable rubbish from those bins are going to be profitable for the community. There are lesser and lesser bins on the street. So every little helps, especially when it comes to recycling. This is a long term project for the wider environmental benefits,” he added.

Councillor Phil Thomas, cabinet member for environment and highways, said: “People who are used to recycling often get frustrated that the litter they put into normal street bins all goes to landfill. These new recycling bins will save us about £10,000 in landfill tax every year if people use them properly and don’t put things like left over food into them.”

Shasha Khan, Croydon Green Party Coordinator, insists recycling should be the priority in the borough. He said:“Recycling should be maximum convenience and minimum effort. Education on how to recycle is not entirely clear to everybody. The householders are usually busy people and it can become very difficult, when they are exhausted, to separate their recyclables into the right bin.

“By 2050 the population of the planet will be 9 billion so, we need to start planning and informing people now in a lifestyle where we see waste as a resource. Information on how to recycle could be put on the side of the actual of the dust cards or on the advertising spaces of the Croydon buses,” he added.

The next environmental project by the Council is to start a food waste collection from October 2011.

Words: Barsha Gurung