KBT Launches The Great British Spring Clean
Keep Britain Tidy is launching its biggest-ever litter campaign, the Great British Spring Clean, to encourage 500,000 people to get out there and tackle litter in their street.
The Spring Clean, which will take place from March 3-5, 2017, has won the backing of TV naturalist and writer Steve Backshall, the BAFTA-winning Deadly 60 presenter.
Steve said: “Litter dropped in a British street is a horror show for wildlife, so many animals are injured and even die from the things we throw away. This is such an important issue and I’m proud to be supporting Keep Britain Tidy and their campaign – the Great British Spring Clean.”
“If 500,000 people help us pick litter for just two hours each that means that our country will benefit from one million hours of clean-up care.”
The campaign is being backed by charities such as the RSPCA, the Marine Conservation Society and Keep Wales Tidy and businesses including McDonald’s, Greggs, Costa, Harrogate Spring Water and The Helping Hand Company.
It builds of the success of 2016’s national clean-up, which saw 250,000 people get stuck in to clean up their communities, including hundreds of school children, thousands of community groups and 400 local authorities across the country, who between them collected more than 300,000 bags of waste.
Keep Britain Tidy Chief Executive Allison Ogden-Newton said: “The Great British Spring Clean is about getting all those people who care about their environment to take action.
“We know that more than 50% of people are concerned about the appearance of their local area and so we want them to feel that they can do something about it and they are not alone in caring.
“If 500,000 people help us pick litter for just two hours each that means that our country will benefit from one million hours of clean-up care.”
www.greatbritishspringclean.org.uk
Local Charities Share £10,000 Thanks To Residents Who Recycle
St Helens Recycling Rewards has raised £10,000 for four local charities who received their donations at the Town Hall as part of a drive to encourage St Helens residents to waste less and recycle more.
During the last 12 months, members of the scheme have been voting for their favourite local charity, with Willowbrook Hospice winning the top prize of £5,000. Second favourite, the Steve Prescott Foundation won £3,000 and the two runners up, Honey Rose Foundation and The Hope Centre, were both awarded £1,000 each.
St Helens Recycling Rewards is a partnership initiative between St Helens Council and specialist provider, Local Green Points. It has been running for a year now and already over 10,000 residents have signed up. Members earn points for their community for recycling – the more materials they save from the brown bin, the more points they earn. The communities with the most points per household have the biggest say over which local charity receives the largest donation and residents can vote any time for their favourite cause.
For the first 12 months, residents of West Park ward earned the most points, with Rainhill ward following close behind. Willowbrook Hospice received the most votes from residents, which bagged them £5,000 followed in second place by the Steve Prescott Foundation who were awarded a £3,000 donation.
Smurfit Kappa Recycling Scheme Raises Over £40,000 for Hospice Care
Smurfit Kappa’s recycling depot in Tamworth is celebrating a huge fundraising milestone, having raised over £40,000 for a leading charity in its community.
A total of£41,038.74 has been raised for St Giles Hospice, which will help to fundthe provision of high-quality care to local people living with cancer and other serious illnesses. This has been largely achievable thanks to businesses in the region who donate their recyclable paper and cardboard to the depot. Smaller businesses deliver their recyclable cardboard and paper direct to the depot, while larger business can request a bin which is collected free of charge. Smurfit Kappa Recycling pays for every tonne of material collected and over the years an increasing number of customers have been nominating St Giles Hospice as the recipient for the payments. It is hoped that even more local businesses will join them over the coming months as the recycler begins working towards its £80,000 fundraising target.
All of the material supplied to Smurfit Kappa ends up at its paper mill in nearby Nechells, Birmingham and its sister mill in Kent, where it is recycled into brown paper which is used to make new packaging materials.As well as generating much-needed funds for St Giles, the initiative provides a free and environmentally-responsible recycling solution for local businesses and ensures a valuable resource is put to good use, close to home.
Rubbish Santa Delivers Serious Fly-Tip Message
A new campaign to target fly-tipping in Cherwell will go live on Monday (12 December) with a series of short videos starring a Rubbish Santa.
Cherwell District Council has scripted, illustrated and animated eight different videos which will each tackle a different fly-tipping issue.
The campaign has been launched in the run-up to Christmas when many people consider dumping rubbish and items to make way for new presents. It will be running on both the council’s Twitter account, @Cherwellcouncil, and its Facebook page: www.facebook.com/cherwelldistrictcouncil/
“We really want to drive home the fact that fly-tipping has far-reaching consequences so we have produced a series of short, light-hearted videos to deliver a serious message. Over an eight-day period, people can watch Rubbish Santa suffer the error of his ways and hopefully they can learn from his mistakes rather than make their own.”
Cllr Debbie Pickford, Cherwell’s lead member for clean and green, said: “Last year there were 558 fly-tips in Cherwell which cost £56,585 in investigation, clean-up and legal costs. People think that it’s okay to dump the odd thing here and there because ‘the council will clear it up for free’ but over time this soon adds up and it’s actually the council tax payers who are left footing the bill.
“We really want to drive home the fact that fly-tipping has far-reaching consequences so we have produced a series of short, light-hearted videos to deliver a serious message. Over an eight-day period, people can watch Rubbish Santa suffer the error of his ways and hopefully they can learn from his mistakes rather than make their own.”
Each day a different fly-tipping message will be promoted through the video, ranging from common misconceptions to the consequences and repercussions for those who are caught.
The videos also remind people of their legal duty of care to ensure all rubbish is correctly disposed of and the importance of using licensed collectors. If residents allow someone to collect their waste and it is later found as a fly-tip, the resident will still be liable for the offence even though they did not personally commit it.
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