Inverness Leisure encourages customers to recycle
The green team at Inverness Leisure, headed up by Ivana Curuvija, Clerical Assistant have taken a radical step this week and removed all litter bins in their car park in a bid to encourage their customers to recycle their rubbish in the new recycling points located inside the centre.
The green team which is made up of Inverness Leisure centre staff, management and representatives from the Board and User Group has a proactive role in making the Bught Lane facilities cleaner, greener and more environmentally friendly.
Speaking about the initiative, which is being trialled for three months, Ivana Curuvija said, “Inverness Leisure is doing all it can to recycle as much of its waste as it possibly can, thus committed to reducing the amount of rubbish going to landfill and as a group we have been looking at ways in which we do this better.
“It was brought to the Green Team’s attention that much of the rubbish found in our external bins didn’t actually come from Inverness Leisure’s as such. We would often see people parking in our car park and actually cleaning rubbish out of their cars into our bins. Additionally, we would regularly find boxes and packets from fast-food outlets lying about around the bins which obviously had not been sold from within Inverness Leisure. So we were concerned that we were actually putting other people’s waste to landfill which was defeating the efforts being made by the Green Team at Inverness Leisure.
Miss Curuvija went on, “We then heard of other green organisations that had reduced their bins and encouraged their customers to take their rubbish with them or hold on to it until they go to the recycling points. So we thought why not give it a go to see if it can work for Inverness Leisure.
Speaking about the Green Team’s new initiative, James Martin, General Manager at Inverness Leisure offered the team encouragement saying, “Although some of our customers may see the steps the green team have taken as quite radical, there is no point in creating this type of group and then vetoing any of their decisions, and I believe that based on others’ experience, this could actually work.
“I think that people in general are becoming more socially aware of littering and are more likely to hold onto their rubbish until they find a bin or recycling point where they can put their rubbish. It’s all about re-education and making a personal change for the environment round about you.
He concluded, “We have nearly 1 million visitors every year at Inverness Leisure, so Ivana and her team need to be congratulated for coming up with any ideas that will reduce the amount of waste such a high volume of customers create and for encouraging them to get involved in recycling.”
The scheme commenced on 1st March and will run for twelve weeks at which stage it will be reviewed by the Green Team, Management and representatives from the Inverness Leisure User Group.