More plastics to be recycled from 1 October 2019

17 September 2019

A few months ago County Councillor Gina Dowding set up and chaired a County task group on reducing single-use plastics. One of the outcomes of this initiative, supported by Lancaster City Council, has been to expand the range of materials that can be collected for recycling via kerbside boxes.

From 1 October you'll be able to put plastic tubs, trays and pots in your recycling box, in addition to plastic bottles. All residents will receive more information about this soon, and are asked not to begin adding the extra items to boxes until October.

Gina said: "It's great to see both County and City Councils committing to increasing the range of plastics that can be recycled. Of course it is still better to avoid buying things packaged in plastic in the first place, wherever possible!"

Green City Councillor Dave Brookes, Cabinet Member for Environmental Services (which includes waste & recycling), said: "We will continue talking to the County Council about expanding the range of recycling that can be collected at the doorstep. Tetrapaks are looking hopeful, but the paper mill that has the County contract is not currently geared up to take them, and we are waiting for the tetrapak industry body and the mill to agree a solution.

"Another issue is cleanliness of recyclables, which requires better education and further behaviour change at home. Plastics need to be clean for the automated sorting process to work properly, and across the board the cleaner recyclables are, the more valuable they are to the companies that recycle them. As an example, County says there is a local company that recycles plastic film, but they currently import waste from Germany because they cannot get the quality they need from UK sources."






RSS Feed North Lancashire Green Party RSS Feed

Back to main page