Page 38 - link magazine

38 The Link Magazine • December 2003
More paper products
collected for reuse
Swindon residents will find re-
cycling their Christmas cards and
packaging easier this year when
the range of paper products col-
lected is extended from 1 Decem-
ber.

The doorstep collection pro-
vided by Swindon Services covers
28,000 homes and now accepts
cardboard based material, in addi-
tion to the existing newspapers,
magazines and junk mail.
The cardboard may include
packaging from foodstuffs and
boxes. The only proviso is that the
card must be clean and contained
within the recycling box issued to
households.
Council recycling officer
Andrew Cook says the collection
service covers about 30 per cent of
homes in Swindon and currently
diverts 200 tons of paper a month
from landfill. By collecting card-
board the target is at least 300 tons.
He said, the amount of food
packaging and cardboard boxes
from electrical and DIY stores is
massive, about four per cent of
recyclable waste. If we divert it
from the waste stream we can re-
duce the amount going into the
ground and recycle it into new
paper based products like corru-
gated card."
Contractors Severnside Recy-
cling will sort the material and
send it to a sister company which
runs a paper mill.
However a major problem is that
only about fifty per cent of house-
holds covered by the door step
collection are making use of it. "We
need to get at least 70 per cent of
households using this service.
Putting paper and card into the
boxes and putting the box out on
collection day is just as easy as
putting it in the refuse bin, and the
effort goes towards reducing envi-
ronmental damage."
Every user of the service should
have received a leaflet describing
the changes, with dates for the forth-
coming fortnightly collections.
For details call 464581 or mail:
[email protected]