Pledge your support to ‘waste less’

(Date of issue: Monday, 22 June 2009)

To celebrate National Recycle Week (Monday, 22 June – Sunday, 28 June), Carlisle City Council and Resource Cumbria staff are joining forces to encourage local residents to have a ‘green’ summer.

A special recycling event will be held as part of Brampton Farmers’ Market, this Saturday (27 June), between 9.30am and 1.30pm. Local residents will be asked to pledge their support to ‘waste less’. Free re-usable cotton bags will also be on offer, while stocks last.

Compost bins will also be on offer for just £8, including delivery and a free kitchen caddy.

Carlisle City Cllr Ray Bloxham, Portfolio holder for Environment and Infrastructure, said:

“The aim of our Recycle event is to encourage people to recycle more using either their kerbside collections or at local recycling centres. Carlisle residents have a great track record and we are one of the best performing recycling areas in the UK, but we are always striving to increase the amount of waste we recycle.”

Since the introduction of a new look waste collection scheme in Carlisle in March 2007, Carlisle City Council has expanded the range of materials that can be recycled. This includes plastic, cardboard, glass, paper and garden waste. Paper; glass bottles and jars; and tins and cans can all be recycled within a greenbox.

Carlisle is currently the best recycling city in the North West and one of the top 25 performing local authorities in the UK.

Performance information drawn together by Wastedataflow from 47 local authorities in the North West, placed Carlisle as the best performing, with a 48% household recycling rate for 2007/2008. All UK figures audited by the Audit Commission also place Carlisle 24 out of all UK 398 local authorities. Provisional figures for 2008/09 show that our performance last year was just as good.

The figures were the result of City Council’s new waste collection scheme that included the expansion of kerbside recycling to thousands of householders. The staggering 48.74% compares to 34.51% in 2006/2007.

The amount of household waste that ends up in landfill has also halved the amount landfilled by the city in 2002. Five years ago, the City Council landfilled 37,500 tonnes of rubbish from Carlisle households. That figure has been cut by 14,000 tonnes as a result of residents supporting Carlisle’s ‘recycling revolution’.