The green revolution

A GREEN revolution has begun in Swindon this morning.

Today, the first of some 30,000 homes across the borough will be taking part in this project to encourage the town to be more environmentally friendly.

This morning the recycling teams will have already begun their rounds collecting in kerbside boxes loaded with recyclable waste including paper, card, tins, foil, glass and even textiles.

Six teams with six specialist recycling vehicles will each visit up to 1,500 homes a day collecting the recycling boxes and loading the contents into different compartments on each lorry.

That means that up to 9,000 homes could have their waste recycled each day.

The rubbish is then taken back to the Swindon Services recycling depot at Waterside Park in Cheney Manor where it is unloaded from each vehicle and processed with different types of waste going into different skips.

Once full, the contents of the skips are sold to re-processing firms who will re-use the materials in different products.

The town already has three waste disposal rounds one for general household rubbish, and another for garden waste and the fortnightly collection of paper and card.

Andy Cook, the council's recycling officer, said: "This is all part of providing more of a first class recycling service we have wanted the people of Swindon to have for a long time.

"It is beneficial to the economy and the environment nationally and locally."

Mr Cook also told the Evening Advertiser, he was confident the town would accept the new recycling scheme.

"Our pilot scheme in Highworth over the last nine months showed that 80 to 90 per cent of people were using their kerbside recycling boxes compared to a national average of 60 per cent.

"We have no reason to think that Swindon would be any different to Highworth," he said.

According to Mr Cook, the people of Swindon have always taken to recycling well, even after the introduction of the first bottle banks into the town people were happy to use them.

Coun Justin Tomlinson(Con, Abbey Meads), lead member for Swindon Services, said he was excited about the scheme and wanted to encourage everyone to get involved.

He said: "We take recycling very seriously because of the benefits it brings to the environment.

"We have found kerbside recycling to be the most convenient system, and we are confident of success after the pilot scheme in Highworth.

"I would urge everyone to take not only because it is good for the environment but it also can help to keep down council tax bills because we can reduce the amounts the council pays in the form of landfill tax."

A booklet has been sent out to every household with their box setting out what day the recycling collection will visit and what households can put out for recycling.

What happens to all your recycled waste

ONCE the skips of glass and plastic, textiles, cans and foil have been collected from the Waterside Park, either by the contractor or the council lorries they are taken to recycling firms.

Currently, cans, glass and plastics are taken to Thamesdown Recycling, just off the A419 north of Blunsdon where the materials are sorted, baled and sold to be re-used.

Cans are brought in by the council vehicles and then put through a can sorter which separates steel cans and aluminium cans by a magnet. After they are crushed down they are baled into cubes for easy transportation with aluminum cans heading off to Novellis in Warrington in Cheshire while steel cans go to Corus in South Wales to be melted down and re-used.

It is not known how much is paid for the materials but its understood that the price of aluminium and steel is based on market fluctuations and supply and demand. Glass is separated into different colours, green, white and brown and taken away to North Yorkshire to be melted down and re-used in bottles and jars.

Some 25 tonnes of paper is taken away from Swindon each day to London while textiles are taken to Devizes, to be recycled and turned into rags or insulation.

Lot of rubbish

MOST UK towns and cities already have large-scale recycling schemes using diverse methods including the use of different bins for materials, such as glass and paper.

Here in Swindon it was decided to have recycling teams who will empty the boxes into different compartments on the vehicles.

At the moment the town generates more than 50,000 tonnes of rubbish enough to fill 10 football pitches to a depth of 2.5 metres.

A lot of that rubbish is currently tipped into landfill, but recycling will mean less has to go to landfill which means the council can save around £34 a tonne of which half is contractual costs, the rest is landfill tax, set by government to increase by £3 a year.

According to a recent audit, the council is managing to recycle around 16 per cent of that waste roughly 13,000 tonnes of rubbish.

Current government targets indicate that local authorities should be recycling around 30 per cent of household waste in 2005 into 2006. Mr Cook says he is confident that the new scheme should meet the government's target.

Anthony Osborne