Drive to improve recycling in the city
The Highland Council’s Waste Aware Team will be concentrating their efforts in Inverness throughout the month of June, carrying out a variety of activities to raise awareness about waste and recycling and the positive impact managing our waste in a more sustainable way can have on our environment.
The major thrust of the campaign will be visits to around 2000 households to provide residents with information on the recycling services the Council provides. The team will also be promoting waste minimisation through a variety of methods including home composting. To coincide with the household visits, Council staff will also visit schools, run a poster campaign and work with local Community Councils to get the waste and recycling message to as wide an audience as possible.
The Highland Council’s Chairman of TEC Services, Councillor John Laing said: “Thanks to the efforts of everyone in Highland, our recycling rate has improved dramatically from around 2% in 2003 to 35% at present. However, we have a set of ambitious recycling targets that we must meet over the forthcoming years. These targets rely heavily on all Highland residents to use the recycling facilities available. Having our Waste Aware team targeting areas around the city to communicate with as broad an audience as possible is an excellent way to remind people what recycling services are available. Raising awareness and encouraging more recycling is crucial if we are to achieve our challenging targets.”
Steve McDermott, a member of the Waste Aware Team was clearly enthused by the idea of working in the local community. He said: “The team are really looking forward to getting out and about and meeting the folk of Inverness. We really hope the work we will be doing on the doorstep and in the schools will help everyone do their bit to manage their waste a wee bit better and improve their environment a lot."
The Waste Aware Team will be easily identifiable and the Council hope that everyone will take this opportunity to get to know them and find out all they want to know about waste and recycling. For more information about waste management in Highland visit http://www.highland.gov.uk/recycle.htm, e-mail recycle@highland.gov.uk or phone 01349 868439.