Eight year old environmental champion promotes recycling in council video
At the end of March, Kirklees Council started collecting plastic pots, tubs, and trays in residents’ green bins. The new items are the first addition to recycling bin collections in ten years. To inform residents about the additions and how not to contaminate a recycling bin, it has produced three videos for residents to watch online.
The third video takes viewers around the Council’s Materials Recycling Facility (MRF), at Emerald Street in Huddersfield where all waste from green bins is taken to be sorted and recycled. From there, Emily and her co-presenters inform residents about what they can and cannot put in their green bins.
Councillor Will Simpson, Cabinet Member of Culture and Greener Kirklees thanked Emily for her support in helping Kirklees Council promote recycling and said, “What a fantastic example Emily is to us all. It is great to see young people engaging with our agenda and I thank her on behalf of everyone at the Council for all her help. She is a credit to herself, her parents, and her school.”
The new video highlights the importance of only putting the right materials in green bins so they can be processed and recycled at the MRF. Plastic pots, tubs and trays have joined plastic bottles, tin cans, paper, and cardboard as appropriate materials to be placed in Kirklees’ green bins.
The presenters explain why materials need to be clean and dry and how damage to the MRF machinery is caused by the wrong items that are put in green bins. Viewers are also treated to some humorous comments about the strange things that people think can be recycled via green bins, such as shoes, toilet seats and potatoes!
“Our three short videos are designed to be informative and light-hearted while getting across an important message. Improving the recycling rates in Kirklees is a key aim of our Resources and Waste Strategy and the videos help us all learn about how we can play our part in achieving those aims together.” said Councillor Simpson
