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The Highland Council's New Recycling Initiatives for Caithness
The new Recycling Centre at the Airport Industrial Estate in Wick opened earlier this week. Local firm, John Gunn and Sons were contracted by The Highland Council to build the new facility which took twelve weeks to complete and cost in excess of a £¼ million which came from the Scottish Strategic Waste Fund.

Householders will now be able to take their cans, car batteries, cardboard, electrical appliances, engine oil, garden waste, paper, rubble and soil, scrap metal, textiles, tyres and white goods to the Recycling Centre where separate skips and containers will be available for the material to be recycled. There will also be an area in the site for residents to take furniture and household goods (bric-a-brac) which will be passed on to Homeaid Caithness for reuse. Residents will be met at the site entrance by an operative who will direct them to the correct containers and are advised to separate their waste before they go the site.

Local Councillor Graeme Smith said: "I very much welcome the use of land which is now a useful community resource and I am very pleased that the funding package was in place to make it happen. I would now encourage the whole community to get behind and support this project which widens the scope of what materials can now be recycled."

In addition to this new Recycling Centre opening, people in Wick and Thurso have also started participating in the new kerbsider collections and have hit the target with their great recycling efforts.

Last week saw the launch of the new kerbside recycling collections for paper, cans and garden waste which have been a great success with many households taking part.

In the first week of the new scheme approximately 6 tonnes of garden waste were collected each day from households. Just over 12 tonnes of paper and 3 tonnes of food and drinks cans were collected from households that receive the new Kerbside recycling collection. All this effort will help towards reaching the Council's challenging recycling and composting target of 18% by April 2006.

Area Chairman of the TEC Services Committee, Councillor John Green said: "I am very pleased that the kerbsider collections are now up and running and so many people have already used this service to recycle their waste paper, cans and garden waste. This has been a very encouraging start and I am confident we can build on this success. We hope to be able to extend these convenient door to door collections to other areas of Caithness. By being a bit more careful about how we dispose of our rubbish, we can play an important part in protecting the environment by reducing the amount of waste which ends up in landfill sites."

Residents are reminded that cardboard cannot be accepted in the blue boxes which are only for paper and cans and that plastic bags should not be placed into the brown bins which are only for garden waste.

The Highland Council working in partnership with Speedy Skip Hire,Thurso have also expanded the network of Recycling Points across the area. Householders can now take their glass bottles and jars to the new Recycling Points in Dunbeath, Thrumster, John O'Groats, Dunnet, Watten for recycling. It is hoped that by the beginning of the summer paper, cans and textile banks will also be added to these sites.

For more information about recycling in the Caithness area please telephone 01955 607761, visit www.highland.gov.uk  or email recycle@highland.gov.uk