Pupils promote glass recycling competition

Households in Caithness are being encouraged to recycle their glass bottles and jars and be in with a chance of winning a £20 voucher for cinema tickets.

Pupils from Pultneytown Primary in Wick launched the competition which is promoting five £20 vouchers to be won, courtesy of The Thurso Cinema. The competition is part of a drive by the Highland Council’s Waste Aware Team to encourage glass bottle & jar recycling in Caithness, which currently has the lowest glass recycling rate in the Highlands.

The free competition is open to all members of the public and has been promoted through Caithness primary schools, with pupils receiving a flyer with the competition details.

All you have to do is to email a photograph of yourself recycling your glass bottles and jars at any Caithness Recycling Point, before the closing date of 1st March 2013. Five winners will be chosen at random and will be announced in March. Photographs should be emailed to recycle@highland.gov.uk or prints can be handed in to Wick or Thurso Service Points.

Some householders recycle their glass bottles, but glass jars are often forgotten about. This includes jars after sauces, jams, spices and baby foods. All glass bottles and jars can be recycled, and it’s easy to do. Just remove the lids and rinse them out before popping them into the nearest glass recycling bank.

Glass currently makes up 8% of household rubbish, and when sent to landfill it doesn’t rot away. However glass deposited in recycling banks is crushed, cleaned and melted down before being turned into new bottles and jars, or fibre glass insulation. It can be recycled over and over with no loss of quality, therefore it is a lot more efficient to make new glass products using recycled glass rather than raw materials.

Many householders wonder why glass cannot be included in the blue bin collection. Glass is not suitable for a mixed collection as it breaks and contaminates the other materials. Also, mixed glass is of such poor quality that it can only be used as aggregate, which is a poor environmental solution to recycling glass.

The Highland Council is currently looking at increasing the number of Recycling Points in Caithness to make glass recycling more convenient for householders.

For more information on recycling and waste minimisation, call 01349 886603, email recycle@highland.gov.uk or visit http://www.highland.gov.uk/recycle.htm