Villages launches recycling scheme

IN AN amazing display of people-power, Kingston villagers have joined with the Lewes-based charity Furniture Now to launch their own doorstep recycling scheme.

IN AN amazing display of people-power, Kingston villagers have joined with the Lewes-based charity Furniture Now to launch their own doorstep recycling scheme.

Concerned by the growth of waste, and the threat of an incinerator being built at Newhaven, the village parish council has formed its own recycling task force.

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The 25 volunteers will run regular fortnightly collection rounds to Kingston s 250 homes, picking up their empty glass bottles, plastics, paper and cans.

The scheme, which starts on Sunday, will involve the use of FN s now famous electric recycling vehicle a 1950s milk float and itself totally environmentally friendly.

The council has paid for households to be issued with recycling boxes and John Fellows, recycling co-ordinator, said: I believe the support we have had indicates the level of concern there is about waste policy.

We hope our ground-breaking scheme will spread to other villages.

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We should be trying to convince the county that alternatives are available. We hope that the same level of collection can be maintained when it is taken over as a municipal responsibility.

Kingston s recycled waste will be taken to Lewes for further sorting.

Furniture Now, with a new electric vehicle, will start kerbside recycling of plastics and other materials in parts of Lewes from March but it is possible that the Kingston volunteer force will continue to look after their village beyond that period.

Said FN operations director Tub Collins: Waste reduction and environmental improvement can only work when they are truly understood and established at the community level.

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The people of Kingston have shown a fantastic commitment to recycling and are leading by example.

We will be working closely with them to ensure that the scheme is a success.

In terms of kerbside recycling, Lewes district has lagged far behind Wealden, where there is a well-established scheme.

The Kingston scheme is the first to be attempted in Lewes, other than a recent pilot scheme in Piddinghoe, also carried out by Furniture Now.

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Lewes gets its own Furniture Now scheme in March, and kerbside collections will also start at that time in Newhaven, where Lewes District Council s contract works group, which looks after waste disposal, will be in charge.

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