Harrogate Borough Council

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PUPILS from Grewelthorpe Primary School and Meadowside Primary School

(Knaresborough) are pulling right behind Olympic rowing champion, Sir Matthew Pinsent, as he urges residents in the Harrogate district to become 'recycling champions'.

 

Sir Matthew is supporting a high profile national campaign called 'the BIG recycle', which aims to encourage more people throughout England to recycle more of their household waste and more often.

 

Harrogate Borough Council and the Schools' Waste Action Club (SWAC) are taking part in the campaign, which is being launched on 27 June.  Irene Wise from Waste Watch, the body, which nationally co-ordinates SWACs, will be visiting the schools to carry out a waste audits.  She will also be encouraging children to eat everything in their packed lunches and to make sure that they take their meals and drinks in environmentally friendly wrapping.

 

Matthew, who even recycles his own rowing kits, was keen to back the campaign.  He said: "I've always been a big believer in recycling and use my local council's doorstep collection service.  I don't even have to think about it now, I just do it.  If we all realised that a little bit of effort means we could all make a big difference, then I think everyone would do it.

 

"I know from my own experience that it has never been easier to make recycling a part of your everyday life.  That's what the BIG recycle is all about - letting people know how and where they can do it, wherever they live."

 

Harrogate Borough Council supports recycling through the mini recycling centres located throughout the district.  Fifty six thousand properties in the district have a kerbside recycling service and 10,000 properties are part of a pilot scheme of green garden waste collection.  Staff from the council's recycling team also visit schools  to offer fun filled educational programmes on the three Rs, REDUCE, REUSE AND RECYCLE.

 

Councillor Les Ellington, Cabinet Member for Environmental Health, said: "It is encouraging to see young people eager to follow Matthew's example.  It is, after all, their future that we are concerned with.  When they are householders themselves, they won't be thinking about household waste.  First, they will think household recyclables and only when they have been exhausted will they think household rubbish.  We want their parents to think like that now so that their children's future on our planet can be assured."  ENDS

 

This is the second year of the 'the BIG recycle' campaign.  Last year, it reached millions of people around the country, and attracted the support of nearly 250 local authorities.

 

The week is being jointly organised and funded by WRAP (the Waste and Resources Action Programme) - a major UK programme established to promote resource efficiency - in partnership with the country's leading materials recycling organisations.