Waste and Recycling Spring Newsletter

West Berkshire Council sent this bulletin at 06-03-2023 04:05 PM GMT

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Recycling and Waste Spring Edition

Please read below for the latest updates and information on the recycling and waste service.

Soil Conditioner Give-Away

Back by popular demand!

On Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 March 2023 there will be a soil conditioner give-away event at the Padworth Integrated Waste Management Facility (IWMF), Padworth Lane, RG7 4JF, between 10am and 4pm. Residents of West Berkshire will be able to pick up Veolia West Berkshire's locally produced soil conditioner for free!

You must bring along your own bags/boxes and will be responsible for collecting and loading the soil conditioner from the site to your vehicle. Shovels will be provided for collecting the material so you don’t have to bring your own. No booking is necessary, however please bring along ID or utility bill with you to prove you are a resident of West Berkshire. Please be patient, this is a free event and demand for our last give away was huge, so there could be some queueing during busy parts of the event days.

To help ease waiting times, we have increased the number of collection points and we will be re-stocking throughout the day so there is no need to get to the site early.

Please visit: www.westberks.gov.uk/compost for more information.

Food Waste Action Week 6 -12 March

We're supporting #foodwasteactionweek from 6-12 March 2023.

Every bit of leftover food has an environmental impact - whether it’s that soggy bag of salad or last night’s leftovers. But did you know that food waste from UK households produces roughly 25million tonnes of CO2 every year? Find out more: www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/fwaw

Free compostable food waste caddy liners will be available to our residents from 6-11 March 2023 from all our West Berkshire Council Libraries (including mobile libraries) and from the reception area at the Council Office in Market Street, Newbury.

Come and collect 1 free roll per household, by showing proof of West Berkshire address to confirm you live within the district.

This offer is while stocks last, please make sure to check opening times before visiting.

Let’s all work together to recycle our food waste weekly. For more information please visit: www.westberks.gov.uk/foodwaste

Fly Tipping

Fly tipping, which can range in size from a small single bag to an entire truck load of rubbish, is a blight on the countryside and costs tax payers’ money to clear this up.

In 2022, there were 966 incidents of fly tipping reported to us, which amounted to 136 tonnes of waste.

Let's SCRAP fly tipping. Don’t be afraid to ASK these questions of anyone removing YOUR waste:

Where are they taking YOUR waste?
What is their waste carrier’s license number?
What are their contact details?

Legitimate businesses will be happy to answer these questions and provide you any supporting evidence you need.

If you don’t ask the right questions, you could be fined if YOUR waste is fly tipped by a rogue trader. Find out more about your duty of care.

Great British Spring Clean

We are again backing Keep Britain Tidy’s #bigbagchallenge to help ‘Spring Clean’ Britain.

This year’s mass campaign, from 17 March to 2 April 2023, calls on families, neighbours, friends and colleagues to join forces and pledge to pick a bag of litter from local areas in order to protect our communities and precious wildlife habitats.

If you are organising a community clean-up event for The Great British Spring
Clean, we can provide litter-picking equipment to help you
carry out your event. Please give us as much notice as possible when requesting
equipment and wait for confirmation before you advertise your event as our
equipment may not be available due to popular demand. To request equipment please visit: www.westberks.gov.uk/communitylitterpick.

Pledge to get involved today at: https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/gbspringclean and support the campaign on social media with the hashtag #GBSpringClean and
#BigBagChallenge

Food Waste Recycling Update

Since the rollout of our weekly food waste collection service in October 2022, we have collected over 1,000 tonnes of food waste. On average we are collecting around 80 tonnes of food waste each week.

We'd like to thank all the residents who are using the new service by keeping food waste out of the black wheelie bin.

If you haven't received a kerbside food waste caddy, or yours has become damaged, you can request replacements online here.

Educational Sessions

Our educational sessions for primary school aged children continue within West Berkshire.
We have an officer available to provide a classroom
session on the topic of 'reduce, reuse and recycle' and
we also have educational books for primary school
aged children.

If you would like any more information about these
sessions, including booking us in for this
year, please email: recycle@westberks.gov.uk

Community RePaint

If you are planning some spring painting jobs, then you've come to the right place!

Last year we launched our Community RePaint scheme at both of our household waste recycling centres (HWRCs) Newbury and Padworth in partnership with our contractor Veolia.

Community RePaint allows residents to drop off paint at either of our Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) in the usual way. Householders visiting the HWRCs will also have the opportunity to take away paint free of charge for DIY jobs or local community projects.

This is a great way to pick up some free paint. In addition this has benefits for the environment as the paint will be put to good use rather than being sent for recycling.

To drop off or pick up leftover paint please make sure you have registered for a digital permit to visit the site and have an appointment booked before you visit.

This scheme is only open to West Berkshire householders and we cannot work with traders, retailers or manufacturers.

And finally...

For more information about our services please visit: https://westberks.gov.uk/rubbishandrecycling