Recycle more

This week marks the start of Recycle Week (June 20 – 26), and Stratford-on-Avon District Council's recycling scheme is extending further across the District with the introduction of new blue recycling street bins.

Blue recycling street bins were first introduced in Shottery Fields in a joint initiative with Stratford-upon-Avon College and Stratford-upon-Avon High School as well as in Henley Street and Sheep Street in Stratford-upon-Avon last May as a pilot.

After a successful trial of these dual litter and recycling bins in Stratford, they have now been rolled out across the District.  Twenty of the 'recycling on the go bins' have been installed recently; nine more have gone into Stratford, two in Bidford, three in Southam, three in Studley and three in Wellesbourne. 

These bins allow the following discarded materials to be recycled:

• Mixed paper and card
• Food tins and drink cans
• Mixed glass, bottles and jars
• Household plastic packaging
• Cartons

The quantity of material diverted from landfill so far is anticipated to be around two and a half tonnes. This is good for the environment and saves valuable public money. It should also go some way to help increase the District Council's overall recycling rate, currently around 59%.

The exact locations are:

• Stratford – Recreation Ground, Bridge Street, Market Cross, Alcester Road and Bridgefoot near the Pen and Parchment
• Bidford – High Street
• Southam – High Street and Market Hill
• Studley – Alcester Road and near the library
• Wellesbourne – Kineton Road and Bridge Street

Litter can be anything from wrappers, cans, bottles, food, plastic bags, cigarette ends, apple cores, matchsticks, and chewing gum to larger items such as bags of rubbish and abandoned shopping trolleys.

The offence of littering relates to what is done with the litter, rather than what it is. That is throwing, dropping, or otherwise depositing something somewhere where you shouldn't (this includes throwing litter out of a car window).

The Council provides a Street Cleansing service 365 days of the year, which includes picking up litter from open spaces and roadsides and emptying over 1,000 litter bins across the district. Litter bins are normally placed in areas of high pedestrian traffic or where we know litter is a problem. All of our litter bins are regularly emptied (some over 4 times a day).

The Council has delegated powers to investigate and prosecute people who drop litter or dump rubbish ('fly tip').

It can often take many years for littered materials to degrade for example:

• Plastic bottles can last indefinitely, and plastic dropped in a field today could still be there in the next millennium.
• Aluminium litter such as drinks cans last from 80 to 100 years, as do nappies.
• Plastic bags given away free by supermarkets last between 10 and 20 years.
• Cigarette butts, orange peel, banana skins and apple cores can last up to two years.

Cigarette butts remain the most littered item in the UK. The second most widespread items are sweet and chocolate wrappers, with soft drinks containers in third place. Takeaway and fast food-packaging litter are forth highest.