Purple bins are arriving around North Kesteven for paper and card recycling trial

North Kesteven District Council accepts that households in the area already do a good job of recycling – putting your paper and card, tins and plastics in the right bins. However, sometimes the leftovers in the tins, broken glass or food waste contaminates the paper, which makes it really hard to recycle efficiently.

The hope is, by having a separate bin, the authority will be able to collect clean and dry paper and card, and avoid it being contaminated by other items.

Collecting recycling all in one bin means that the vast majority of paper and card is contaminated by glass and food waste. Paper and card is also prone to becoming damp, wet and stained when mixed with other recycling.

This dry paper and card can then be sent direct to a local paper mill, reducing the amount of road miles and carbon footprint and processing it back into a paper based product.

NKDC Council Leader, Coun Richard Wright said: “ This trial gives us the opportunity to do something different, not only helping us to further support the environment, but also helping us to reduce the amount of contaminated waste collected - saving both time and money.

We hope that residents in North Kesteven taking part in the trial feel supported, and should they have any further questions with regards our recycling process, our Waste Team are more than happy to advise further.”

The trial is being carried out by the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership, which sees the county council and other district councils working together to come up with the best and most efficient ways to recycle as much waste as possible.

The partnership has looked at similar schemes operating around the country, which they say have worked really well – hugely increasing the amount of paper and card sent to recycling, and also the quality. Lincolnshire hopes to see the same benefits in this area for the environment and households.

The cost of acquiring the new bins and other associated requirements is around £200,000 across the county for the duration of the trial. However, this initial investment is expected to be recouped within five years and greatly outweighed by the long-term savings. The authority insists it is not just about cost but about doing the right thing to help protect the environment for the future.

The collection day will not change but the frequency will change slightly and your paper and card will be collected once a month, with other recycling collected once a month also. Households in the trial will receive details of what materials will be collected on each day.

The trial areas have been chosen to represent a wide spread of the types of households across the whole of Lincolnshire in order to learn what works well and understand if this is a viable option for everyone in the future. Areas within the trial are Cranwell village, Ashby de la Launde, RAF Digby, part of Scopwick, part of Digby, Kirkby Green, Rowston, Timberland, Thorpe Tilney and Walcott.

If you live in one of the trial areas, you will have received a letter explaining things further, but you might have some questions or would like some more information, so a number of drop in events are being held next week across the areas affected, so you can pop in if you would like to know more.

The drop in sessions are:

September 18 at 10am-12noon - Scopwick Village Hall; at 2-4pm Cranwell Village Hall; at 5-7pm Timberland Village Hall.

On September 20 at 10am-12noon - The HIVE at RAF Digby; at 2pm-4pm Digby War Memorial Hall.