By the time readers in Longlevens receive this, a trial will be underway in that area for doorstep recycling of tetrapaks and aerosols. These are items that residents regularly ask to be included in their green box collection scheme. We’re happy to give it a go and, if it works, extend it across the city.

We’re not trialling Longlevens because I live there or because it’s the ward I represent, but because Longlevens is one of our best recycling areas.

A big improvement
We’ve come a long way with recycling over the last decade – but there is still a great deal more to do. In 2004, our recycling rate was a meagre 9%, but is now around 40% – still less than where we would like it to be but a big improvement nonetheless. It has improved so much because we extended the green box collection across the whole city and added new items like plastic bottles and card to the existing range of glass bottles and jars, metal food and drink cans plus newspapers and magazines.

We introduced garden waste collection which, despite an annual charge being introduced, is still used by around 17,000 households. And we’ve been collecting food waste weekly for the last few years which, amongst other benefits, removes a food source for those pesky seagulls!

Many environmental benefits
I’d love for us to be able to further extend the range of materials we collect from doorsteps, particularly cardboard. We will be looking closely at introducing this when the fleet of recycling vehicles is replaced at some point next year.

There are many environmental and financial benefits to recycling and I’m sure we can improve our collection rates even without collecting more different types of material, if we can get more people to take part. It does only take a small amount of your time, but the rules can be confusing. If you have any questions about recycling, you can call our contact centre on 01452 396396 or visit the Council’s website at gloucester.gov.uk.