Recycling service is filling a gap in the market

Sustainable Selkirk Community Energy Advice Centre is collecting items that are not included in council kerbside recycling collections to send them to TerraCycle for recycling, in the process keeping them out of landfill.

And for each item of waste sent for recycling, the group earns monetary donations which go towards local sustainability initiatives.

Now the centre is encouraging residents in Selkirk and the surrounding areas, to help them raise money by collecting their “un-recyclable” items and bringing them in for recycling.

The group has signed up for several free recycling programmes which enable them to set up a drop-off point for “hard-to-recycle” items.

The programmes include the Hasbro toys and games, Sistema food storage container and reusable bottle, Philips Dental Care, McVitie’s biscuits and snacks, and Pilgrims Choice free recycling programmes, enabling them to collect items like toothbrushes, biscuit wrappers and cheese packaging. These items are not included in council kerbside recycling collections so have traditionally been destined for landfill or incineration.

Once dropped off at the group’s advice centre, the items are sent to TerraCycle, the world leader in recycling hard-to-recycle waste.

For every item collected TerraCycle points are earned which are redeemed as monetary donations to the group’s chosen charity, Selkirk Regeneration.

The drop-off point can be found at 5 Tower Street, Selkirk, and is open to the community on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays between 10am and 2pm. Local residents are encouraged to bring their “un-recyclable” items to the location to be recycled and help boost the groups fund-raising efforts.

Angela MacKellar, project coordinator of Sustainable Selkirk, said: “So far we’ve collected several kilograms of waste that would otherwise have ended up in landfill, incineration or worse. We will donate the funds raised to Selkirk Regeneration, a local charity that aims to benefit the people of Selkirk and the surrounding area by being a proactive force in promoting community regeneration, environmental conservation and sustainable development towards a low-carbon future.”

The collected items are sent to TerraCycle and are recycled by shredding, cleaning and turning them into plastic pellets which can then be used by manufacturers to create new generic plastic products, such as outdoor equipment – reducing the need to extract new resources from the planet.

Angela added: “We encourage everyone in the area to get involved and sort, save and bring the items we can recycle to our drop-off location. It’s a great way to reduce the amount of waste you send to landfill, and it also helps raise funds for a great cause.”