Teignbridge marks end of successful recycling campaign

Mary Youlden
Authored by Mary Youlden
Posted Monday, August 1, 2016 - 3:05pm

Teignbridge District Council’s Recycling Together Rewards scheme has proven a success after encouraging local community groups and neighbourhoods to recycle more food waste.

Across the district, community groups have been encouraging local residents to sign-up and make a commitment to recycle food waste instead of using their black bin for disposal. The scheme has been hailed a great success, with a total of 48 community groups and nearly 600 residents signing-up to the initiative.

Each month bins of registered residents were randomly checked and if no food waste was found in their black bin, both they and their chosen community group won a cash prize. In total, 33 different community groups have benefited from winning money as part of the initiative.

Over the life of the campaign, voluntary organisation H.I.T.S. (Homeless in Teignbridge Support) signed-up the highest number of participants, 61 in total, and were awarded the top prize of £1000. Ashburton Swimming Pool and Newton Abbot Community Transport were runners-up and were given cash prizes of £100 each, with 57 and 39 sign-ups respectively.

Teignbridge is committed to creating a clean district where local community groups play an active role in recycling. This scheme supports the Council’s Ten Year Strategy which aims to increase recycling rates to help make the district an even cleaner, greener place to live, work and visit.

Cllr Kevin Lake, Teignbridge District Council’s Executive Spokesman for Environment Services said: “There’s been a fantastic response to the campaign and I would like to thank everyone who was involved. Congratulations to H.I.T.S Food Bank and to all the other winners who I’m sure will put the prize money to good use.


“Recycling is a high priority issue to the Council and initiatives such as this can only help increase our recycling rates. This Council-run scheme has proven to be a real success and shown how communities and neighbourhoods across the district can come together and play a significant role in reducing waste.”

Bob Newton, H.I.T.S. Food Bank Co-ordinator said:

"It was of great surprise for H.I.T.S. Food Bank to have been awarded first prize in this very worthwhile recycling initiative. We extend our grateful thanks to Teignbridge District Council for promoting this scheme and also to all the volunteers and members of the public who supported and nominated H.I.T.S. Food Bank.

“We are a local volunteer-led Charity who supports Teignbridge people who are either homeless or in crisis and need, with our support, advocacy and mentoring services and one of our core principles is the environment, recycling and re-distributing unsold best before date food to our clients who are in food poverty. We work with many major food retailers and producers who ensure that recycling is a key factor in all of our work."

The Recycling Together Rewards scheme was supported by £40,000 from the Department for Communities and Local Government and is part of Teignbridge's new waste and recycling collection service which helps make it easier for people to recycle more.

For everything you need to know about recycling in Teignbridge, visit www.teignbridge.gov.uk/recycling

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