Belfast City Council to host second annual Waste Week

Belfast City Council is set to hold its second annual Waste Week to coincide with the first anniversary of its successful new household recycling paper scheme.

During the five day ‘Reduce Reuse and Recycle’ campaign, everyone from primary school pupils to shoppers to business leaders will have the chance to learn how they can help tackle the amount of waste dumped in landfill sites.

The week of events, which runs from Tuesday June 1 until Saturday June 5, will include a birthday party for the Council’s recycling mascot, Phillipa Binn, a business breakfast, a ‘No Bag Day’ and a three-day Waste Fair.

Martin Doherty, Waste Manager with Belfast City Council, said: "The European Commission has set us the target of recycling 25 per cent of our household waste products by the year 2005.

“The Council is determined to meet this target, and already has taken huge strides forward in the past year. Our ‘blue bin’ scheme is being rolled out across the City, and we recently opened three new state-of-the-art household recycling centres, with a fourth to be developed."

During the week, the Council will be publishing the results from the first year of its household paper recycling programme. The latest computer technology allows the Council to monitor the recycling rates for all parts of the city, to see who is playing their part and who is not.

The technology – the only system of its type in the British Isles and among the most sophisticated currently in use anywhere in Europe – even allows the Council to analyze the recycling rates of individual streets.

(MB)