On World Environment Day, Tuesday 5th June, The Orkney News caught up with Jayne Venables, Orkney Islands Council’s Project Co-ordination Manager for Waste who was engaging with shoppers at Tesco Kirkwall to raise awareness of recycling and to encourage them to take the Plastic Pledge.

OIC has recently increased the range of materials you can recycle in Orkney. You can find details here: What to Recycle

There are also places where you can take items that may be able to be re-used by someone else.

Where Can I Donate Good Items That Can Be Re-Used ?

• CLAN, 30 Victoria Street, Kirkwall, Orkney, KW15 1DN.
• The Orkney Food Bank, 18 Junction Road, Kirkwall, Orkney, KW15 1AB.
• British Red Cross, 68 Victoria Street, Kirkwall, Orkney, KW15 1DN.
• Restart Orkney, 62 Junction Road, Kirkwall, Orkney, KW15 1AR.
• Orkney Zerowaste Yard, Garson Place, Stromness, Orkney, KW16 3EE (just along from the recycling centre).
• Homestart Orkney, Main Street, Kirkwall, Orkney, KW15 1BU.
• The Blue Door, 63 Victoria Street, Kirkwall, Orkney, KW15 1DQ.
• Cats Protection Orkney, 85-87 Victoria Street, Stromness, Orkney KW16 3BS.
• Salvation Army Shop, Unit 4, Anchor Buildings, Kirkwall, Orkney KW15 1HR.
• British Red Cross Shop, 2 Graham Place, Stromness, Orkney KW16 3BY

The event on Tuesday was mainly to highlight Plastics: to try to get people reducing the amount of plastic they use and also informing them on what they can recycle.

Plastic that can be recycled is worth £7 a tonne and in Orkney last year we recycled 53 tonnes of it. Two things need to happen 1. that we get into the habit of recycling our plastics and 2. that we personally reduce the amount of single use plastics = take the Plastic Pledge.

Jayne Venables leads a small team of 3 (soon to be 4) but is keen to get the recycling message out. For instance in Orkney it costs us £1million a year to burn the waste we produce.

OIC has also extended what householders are able to recycle adding aerosols, kitchen foil and foil tray products as part of the fortnightly green bin collections.

It is thought that Orkney households use over 12 million cans, foil trays and aerosols per year. Used metal packaging can be recycled into new products at a far lower cost to the environment than making them from raw materials. Making drinks cans from recycled metal saves up to 95% of the energy, and greenhouse gas emissions, needed to make both aluminium and steel from raw materials.

Metals are the most valuable of the materials which can be recycled.

Jayne Venables said:

“World Environment Day is also about inspiring change and action – so we’ll be inviting people to create a Personal Plastic Pledge and share it with us. We’ll post the best ideas on social media, and all entries will go into a prize draw to win a bag of goodies including alternatives to single-use plastics.”

Pledges can also be submitted via the Council’s Eco Active Orkney Facebook page   or by emailing recycling@orkney.gov.uk

See also:

• Recycling in Orkney
• Pomona Leading the Way with Reusable Mugs

Reporter: Fiona Grahame