Recycled cash sees new 'Waste Action' in schools

Copyright NNDC

Keen recyclers using the bottle, textile, can and paper banks at the Rainbow supermarkets in Cromer and Fakenham have given local schoolchildren a new opportunity to learn about reducing, re-using and recycling waste.

Over the last year, the two Rainbow stores (part of the Anglia Regional Co-Operative Society) have earned £2680 in 'recycling credits' from North Norfolk District Council (NNDC), and this week they presented the money to the Schools Waste Action Club (SWAC), a county-wide waste education initiative. The cash will be used to support recycling in schools, including providing bins for recyclable rubbish.

One of the first to benefit will be Cromer Junior School, which carried out a waste audit in January, and decided it needed to do more recycling.

To earn the credits, Rainbow customers recycled more than 83 tonnes of waste at the Fakenham store and about 55 tonnes at Cromer. The donation, made on Wednesday, 20 March, follows one of £2600 in November 2000.

Cromer Rainbow Manager David Last said: "The Anglia Regional Co-Operative Society is committed to being a focus of the local community, and to helping local authorities and similar groups in this way. With this scheme, we are recycling money back into the local community."

Louise Graham, Development Officer for SWAC in Norfolk, added: "This donation shows that by bringing their old bottles, paper, clothes and cans for recycling, people are having a wider effect than they might realise."

SWAC is funded by a partnership of Norfolk's County and District councils, and run by the national Waste Watch charity. It is a free service to Norfolk schools, and is linked to the National Curriculum.

The recycling credits scheme is administered by NNDC, and allows stores, parish councils, and others to host recycling banks at little or no cost to themselves, while earning money for the recyclable materials for themselves or their favoured charities.

NOTES FOR EDITOR

To find out more about the Norfolk Schools Waste Action Club, contact Louise Graham or Alison Pagan on (01603) 620337.
For more information about Waste Watch and Schools Waste Action Clubs across the country, see www.wastewatch.org.uk.

Picture shows (left to right):

NNDC Environmental Strategy Assistant Hetty Selwyn, Fakenham Rainbow Manager Tim Drew, Norfolk County Council Recycling Co-ordinator Deirdre Dudley-Owen, SWAC Development Officer Louise Graham, and Cromer Rainbow Manager David Last with the message - and the money - for dealing with waste.