Neston Grove Challenge winners!

Congratulations to our very first Street Recycling Challenge winners Neston Grove. They took on neighbouring street Rostherene Rd and pipped them to the post, to claim the title of Street Recycling champions.

It was a close run race with only 2 wheelies bins in it! The biggest success was the overall increase in recycling in both streets, the bin put out rate before the challenge was 32% and after the Challenge this had risen to 50%!

Residents had to fill their blue, brown and green bins with the correct recyclable items and put them out for collection by 7.00am on 30th June. The bins were checked on collection day to see how full they were with Neston Grove residents being judged the winners having recycled over 24 full wheelie bins to Rostherne Roads 22.

When we presented Rachel Barnes a resident of Neston Grove with her prize we got to see first hand how the neighbourhood had embraced the challenge with people asking us which street had won and Rachel’s children showing us what goes in what bin and telling us tales of how they had helped Mum to sort the recycling for the Challenge.

Hopefully this Challenge will inspire many more people in Stockport and other areas of Greater Manchester to take advantage of the new and improved recycling services provided at the kerbside and at Household Waste Recycling Centres.

Do you live in Greater Manchester and think your streets up for the challenge? Then get in touch. Either leave a comment or email communications@recycleforegreatermanchester.com

Neighbours go head to head in the Stockport Street Challenge

For Recycle Week, Recycle for Greater Manchester and Stockport MBC decided to put residents to the challenge – a Street Recycling Challenge.

In Stockport since we gave almost all households a set of wheelie bins everybody has been recycling more, but there are still recyclables sneaking into refuse bins. Sometimes people aren’t sure which bin it can go in so it ends up in the refuse bin.

It’s also a case of changing long formed habits such as scraping the leftovers off dinner plates into the food caddy which will then be recycled instead of into the refuse bin.

What better way to encourage behaviour change and recycling than a bit of friendly rivalry. Plus an added incentive of a £20 shopping voucher for each winning household, all the residents I spoke to thought it was definitely worth a go!

40 houses on Neston Grove and Rostherne Road are currently going head to head to recycle as much as they can, using their blue, brown and green wheelie bins by the 30^th June. Believe me every bit of recycling really does count.

Did you know that aluminium foil can be recycled with your cans and tins? And Tetrapaks, that’s juice or beverage cartons to you and I, can be recycled with your paper and cardboard? 

Early indications showed Neston Grove to be just in the lead by 3 wheelie bins. That’s about two mown lawns, 100 2 pint plastic milk bottles (washed and squashed!), and 2 full sacks of mail.

Each street is keen to win, and residents are searching the cupboards under the sink for empty cleaning bottles, and clearing out bathroom cabinets of used aerosols. I’ve got a collection of empty shoe boxes if anyone is interested…….

I’ll be sitting in  my office waiting for the rush! Keep checking back for the final results…..

Written by Eleri Jones – Community Recycling Officer, Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council

Phew what a week!

Recycle Week has gone down a storm this year and it’s all thanks to you, with 498 people from all over Greater Manchester pledging to Recycle more at their local events and HWRCs, via post and online.

But it’s not over yet, there is still a week left to pledge. The prize draw closes on July 3rd, so get pledging today to be in with a chance to win £100 of shopping vouchers for all the top high street shops! We want to get at least a1,000 and that’s not much to ask with a population of 2.6 million!

Hopefully you have all been recycling Away as well as at Home this week, I will be reporting on the HWRC figures for recycling rates and landfill diversion on a later blog spot to see how we got on during the week. Also want to know where you’re recycling goes then check out our new web feature, which dispels the myth that it all goes to far flung corners of the world.

We launched our schools assembly competition – ‘Sort it out, Share and Shout’ with a fantastic prize of £4,500 up for grabs and we have had a really positive response with schools signing up already, so if you have a child at school or work at a school don’t waste your chance sign up today.

The events have been well received with people signing up to get their new food waste caddies and compostable liners from Salford Council and Rochdale residents signing up for the new blue bin for paper and card waste. There are still events going on too in Bolton, Bury Rochdale and Salford. There are lots of freebies at the event which all aim to help you to recycle more and waste less, so do check out our events calendar for more information on dates and times.

Also not forgetting Stockport Council have been busy knocking on residents doors and organising their Recycling Street Challenge, 2 streets will go head to head to see who can recycle more over the next week. More on the challenge to come so watch this space.

There has been lot’s in the news about Stockport’s new recycling service so I’m going to leave you with this impressive statistic, since rolling out their new recycling system, Stockport have increased their recycling rate to over 50 per cent and avoided landfill costs of almost £3m!!!

The blog is a new feature to our website, after this week it won’t be a daily update but we will try to blog when there is something interesting or exciting happening in the world or Recycling and waste prevention. So please do visit us again as we will be here and do leave your comments and share your tips and experiences with us as we would love to hear them.

Thanks again for a fantastic Recycle Week and see you soon

Dave Spikey – Where have I wheely been? (Sorry)

Can’t believe I’m blogging, I’m not down with all this social networking, twittering stuff, but here I am and I must say it’s been an exciting Recycle Week I really got involved this year, in between touring and writing I spent a day working on the Household Waste Recycling Centres, (that’s a Tip in old money) and mixed recycling bin collection, where I met lots of you doing your bit to recycle more.

 

It’s amazing what you can recycle now at these HWRCs, if you can’t recycle it at home you can always take it there and there are loads of them around. I helped people recycle allsorts including wood, rubble, an old pram (which we decided was definitely metal) and electrical appliances such as microwaves and lawn mowers.

I helped empty a couple of vehicles and there was some proper interesting stuff, a real mix too. It’s heartening to see people make a real effort to separate it and take it to the right bays. It’s unbelievable what you learn about people from their rubbish, for instance whilst helping Heather from Romiley, who was recycling a cardboard box for a reptile egg incubator (That’s Romiley for you) I discovered that she had been using it for her hibernating tortoise!

The people I met were really chuffed with their new facilities, and said how much easier it is to recycle now at the HWRCs, but it’s bound to be if I’m there emptying their vehicles for them!

After my stint in the Centres I went for my training on the bins, Greg from SK Solutions taught me the ropes (I thought it would be hydraulics – but no, ropes as it turns out) on the loading mechanism and the Health and Safety stuff. Once I was trained up I went out on the collection round with the crew. On this round alone the lads had 2,000 properties to get around. It’s demanding stuff and I have a lot of admiration for these guys.

As you know I’ve been fronting the recycle right campaign, you know the one  ‘stick it in the right bin’ and there I was on the bins themselves, looking a bit weathered to be fair – swarthy, oh aye. So whilst loading up the bins I had a quick peek to see if the message was getting through and what type of plastic was in there, was it just bottles?

It was a success in most cases, however there are some plastics like marg’ tubs and yogurt pots still making there way in to the bin which shouldn’t be there! One bin was completely full which was great but I was amused when I found loads and loads of empty cans of pop and one solitary bottle of mouthwash in one bin; made me think maybe I should have been a dentist. I mean how hard can it be taking teeth out? And the power and fear you generate when you start up the drill Wwweeeeeeeee. And you could have a laugh tying string round the bad tooth and the other end to the door handle just to see if that actually works. Or colour one of their front teeth in with a marker once you’ve banged in the anaesthetic. Anyway I digress….

The lads regaled us with tales of heroics; the driver on our round had recently saved a child’s life, whilst collecting the bins. A real recycling superhero!

One lady walking past shouts over “Hey it’s Spikey are you here to tell us what we can stick in our bins?”, whilst the operatives cracked the obligatory “come and get your black bin bags” jokes.

 So for a day I was an operative at work at the rear, that’s what I call a job description!  

Collections done, there was time for a few more photos to highlight exactly what CAN go in your mixed recycling bin and what CAN’T! I also signed the I love recycling pledge and I’ve been recycling more by putting my juice cartons into the paper waste bin and recycling upstairs as well as downstairs including my shower gel bottles. When I say “My shower gel” I obviously mean my wife’s, I’m still a “soap on a rope” sort of bloke which reminds me that I must ask which container I put the rope in. Be “Hemp products” I expect.

If you’re still confused about what you can put in your mixed recycling bin check out our NEW video, and remember keep recycling because when you do you’re helping to save our planets precious resources and that can only be a good thing!

Two for the price of one!

Yes it’s Recycle Week but did you know its Bike Week too? Interestingly the 2 topics are not unrelated.

Yes national Bike Week is a celebration of all things bike related with a call for you to get on your bike, get your family and mates on their bikes and get out there and enjoy cycling.   It is also an opportunity for you to recycle or re-use an old bike that hasn’t seen the light of day since the Christmas you got it or that time of life when you used to give your mates ‘backies’ to the local shop!

Last Sunday I was in Trafford at the Sale Lions summer fair and bike festival, promoting the Recycle for Greater Manchester – Recycle your Bike campaign which aims to encourage people to donate their unwanted bikes to local projects.  These community projects will restore and refurbish bikes which are then sold on cheaply, given away to people in need or used to teach children and adults how to ride. Even bikes that are past their best will have a use as spare parts or even art! So if you have an old bike rusting in your shed and you want to get rid, simply log on here, put in your postcode to find a local project to take your bike.

Or look out for me on the Recycle your Bike stall promoting bike re-use and giving away free water bottles and lanyards, I will be at Exchange Square in Manchester on the 24th June, as part of Manchester’s Bike Friday event. Along with Manchester’ssustainable transport team we will be offering information and advice between 8am-10.30am. Come along and find out more!

Team Green Britain co-ordinate national bike week events and you can find out what is happening near you by logging on to their bike week website.

by Phillippa Superville Blackford – Community Liason Ofiicer, GMWDA

Golden global moments… and a little bit of England

Recycle Week is a national event but I have been going global in my attempts to find some of the more interesting and funny recycling moments to celebrate the week and all of our attempts to recycle more.

I have to start off with this gem from a Land Down Under.

You have to admire the Aussies approach to public health and environment issues they do it with a sense of humour, rarely seen anywhere else. Instead of going down the sadist route of shocking the folk of Greater Manchester when they put the wrong stuff in their home recycling bin, we have done something much nicer and made a new animated video featuring the comic genius of Dave Spikey which we featured in our first blog.

This next one is a delight, a group in Montreal,Canada utilised the power of the masses and positive reinforcement in a flash mob in the local shopping centre.

Now that’s what I call a standing ovation, it lasted a good 2-3 minutes, an inspired way to reward those who recycle. It’s also a great example of recycling away from home, I have recently noticed lot’s of recycling bins popping up in town centres, markets, concert arenas, parks and shopping centres here in Greater Manchester and up and down the country.

In fact London has finally cottoned onto the idea of recycling on the go and introduced recycling bins onto the Tube network, which is great news. So look out for these recycling bins when you’re out and about because as this video shows you never know whose watching!

From across the ocean to here in England, thought I would opt for something topical for our fair isles.  Glastonbury starts tomorrow and you may be lucky enough (or maybe not with this weather!) To be going to this fantastic festival, if so there are many ways you can get involved in recycling. Nouvelle will be giving out free recycled toilet paper (a festival must have) and their latest video encourages festival goers to re use their plastic bottles, something we can all do at any time Home and Away.

My top tips for bottle reuse include reusing  squash bottles for sports/gym sessions, when they get close to the end fill up with water. Also instead of using plastic cups in the office refill your plastic bottle bought at lunch from the water cooler.

Please welcome our first guest blogger

Joanne Stanley Waste Minimisation Officer, Oldham Council

9:25am on a fine Saturday morning in Oldham, the wind is whipping up, yet there is hope as the Oldham Council promotional trailer comes into view. After commandeering a few early morning shoppers to help get the trailer into place, we are ready to begin. Things start slowly, but we are soon drawing attention as the sun comes out. There’s plenty of banter with Oldham’s residents as well as probing questions being asked.

We see many familiar faces in the Saturday shopping crowds, many of whom come over to pick up some leftover recipe cards for inspiration for tea that night and others to make a pledge to recycle more during the week and hopefully beyond.

All in all a positive start here in Oldham to Recycle week 2011.

Blast off for our new blog spot – it’s Recycle week

Hip hip hooray it’s the start of Recycle Week and we will be blogging all week, bringing you lots of recycling tips, facts, events, our favourite recycling moments and guest bloggers including Dave Spikey.

We are encouraging all of the lovely people of Greater Manchester to ‘watch their waste’ as part of the annual national event.

Anyone can get involved and even the smallest changes to how you manage your household waste can have a big impact! The ultimate aim is to get everyone to recycle just one more thing for Recycle week either at home or away.

So think about what you throw out this week. Can it be recycled? Not sure. Then check out our quick Home and Away guide on our Recycle week pages.

There’s loads going on in your area and here on our website to encourage you to get involved, check out our new Recycle right video

and tell us what you think of it. Also get pledging to recycle more this week and be in with a chance of winning £100 of high street shopping vouchers.

Oldham Council kicked off our week of local events with a roadshow inOldhamtown Centre, Joanne Stanley the Waste Recycling Officer our first guest blogger, tells all about it.

I will leave you with this startling fact:

The UK produces enough rubbish to fill Wembley stadium every week. Over half of that waste can be recycled.

Imagine that for a moment! If you watchedManCitywin the FA Cup recently it won’t be too hard too visualise. We’re not doing badly here in Greater Manchester we currently recycle 34% of our 1.1 million tonnes produced but we could do more, so here is the first top tip to start you on your way to recycling just one more thing. When your shampoo and shower gel bottles are almost empty, take off the lid and add more water. This will make it go further and rinses out the container ready for recycling.

Do you have any recycling tips? If so please share them with us below.