At last - recycling boxes for SE1’s Southwark residents too

The expansion means that all street properties across the borough will have their own Blue Box to collect their waste paper such as magazines, newspapers and junk mail. Residents of the Lambeth section of SE1 have enjoyed this service for several years.

The council also has plans to extend the street collection scheme to other recyclable materials. In addition there will be a review of the locations of bottle, paper, can and textile banks to make it even easier for people to dump rubbish for recycling.

Cllr Richard Thomas, Executive Member for Environment and Transport, said: "We have a commitment to treble the recycling rate in Southwark and I hope the expansion of this scheme will go a long way towards achieving that.

Southwark wants to expand the scheme, piloted in 7,000 households in 1996, even further and will be working with tenants and residents to develop a model for a collection on housing estates. A pilot is already underway on the Aylesbury Estate.

New Blue Boxes are being delivered across the borough now with the first fortnightly kerbside collection scheduled for 15 July. People are also getting leaflets about how the scheme will work and the dates for collection.

In one year, each person living in inner London creates almost half a tonne of waste. Most of it goes to landfill even though around half of it could be recycled. By 2007
London's landfill will have reached capacity. In Southwark, people recycle 3% of household waste. Government targets say the borough should be recycling 10% of waste by 2004 and 18% by 2006.