Boxes to replace banks (From Stroud News and Journal)

Boxes to replace banks

RECYCLING in the Five Valleys is to undergo a shake-up next month as under-used bottle banks and paper bins are scrapped in favour of more kerbside collections.

Stroud District Council plans to cut the number of static collection points in car parks across the area while rolling out the fortnightly kerbside recycling to every private address in the district.

And from April residents will also be able to recycle certain plastics without leaving their own homes.

"The changes have as much to do with sustainability as anything else," said Carlos Novoth, the council's technical contracts officer.

"There's no point in putting a recycling point out in the sticks if people are having to purposefully go out there to recycle.

"It's so unsustainable it would cost the earth."

"What we're trying to provide people with the service they want and we thought people wanted the kerbside recycling - 95 per cent of them do."

But not everyone is happy with the changes.

The paper bin at Walter Preston Court sheltered housing in Cashes Green is among those set to be removed in April.

Yvonne Davies, the warden, believes recycling will be more difficult for the residents once the bin is gone.

"We have 35 flats here on three storeys and most of the residents are over 80," she said.

Residents had limited space to store their personal recycling from week to week, she said, and many of them would find it difficult carting the bulky boxes up and down floors.

"We're not very happy," she said.

"This isn't going to work for the sheltered housing at all."