Recycling to be boosted with help of schoolchildren

Schoolchildren in Swansea are being given tips on recycling to take home and pass on to parents.

Hundreds of pupils who attend Townhill Community , Gors and Seaview Primary Schools have taken part in fun activities linked to waste disposal in a bid to get families recycling and meet government recycling targets.

Swansea Council’s Recycling Team has been visiting the schools as part of a series of initiatives that aim to encourage households to recycle instead of using black bags.

By April, all councils in Wales must recycle 58% of waste collected at either the kerb or household waste recycling centres. 

Some of the initiatives organised by the council have targeted communities where participation rates are lower than other parts of Swansea.

David Hopkins, Cabinet Member for Environment and Transportation, said: “The success of recycling partly rests with us educating children about why we as a city must recycle and the negative impacts on our local communities if we don’t.

“The only way we can increase our current recycling rate is if more households recycle. Some recycle lots, others recycle a small amount and some households just don’t bother.”

Karen David, Year 6 teacher at Townhill Community School, said: “Recycling in school is very important.  Our recycling monitors enjoy the responsibility of ensuring that everyone in the school recycles, and will often remind us of our responsibility to the environment if they find out we have not recycled something that could be recycled. 

“Parents have often said that their children remind them of what to recycle and when. It is second nature to our children and this will hopefully benefit our environment in years to come.

Recently, Cllr Hopkins joined council recycling officers and litter enforcement teams at a clean-up event in Townhill where black bags that had been left abandoned on the streets were retrieved and the recyclable material filtered out.

Cllr Hopkins added: “It was a real eye opener. Almost all the waste in the bags we retrieved was recyclable. It illustrated that we need to do more work with local communities to get them on board.

“There is no excuse. Burying household waste in landfill is costing the council £4 million a year in landfill tax. We provide a wide range of kerbside recycling services and so there is little need to put everything in a black bag. “