Suffolk County Council’s Waste Management team have been working in partnership with St Edmundsbury Borough Council, Bury in Bloom and staff and students at West Suffolk College. Together they have composed an eye catching sculptural installation for the Southgate roundabout in Bury St Edmunds as part of the 2007 Bury in Bloom scheme. It is hoped that they will really capture the vote of the officials when judging takes place next week.
The ‘bottle trees’ are part of Suffolk County Council’s sponsorship of the roundabout, which will also include a promotional sign with the words ‘Recycle for Suffolk’.
The three “recycled trees” were constructed using several hundred plastic bottles and aluminium drink cans. The bottles were put together by young adults with learning difficulties from the Moving On group at West Suffolk College and the whole structure was compiled by Suffolk County Council’s Waste Awareness Campaigns Officer, Caroline Fish.
“The general idea was to use waste in a creative way to make us all think about the waste we produce and what we do with it. Recycling rates in St Edmundsbury are very high at around 50% and around 40% across the whole of the county.
We want to make these rates even higher and even more importantly to think about minimising the amount of waste we are making in the first place. These resources don’t really grow on trees. All of these bottles were used once before being sent for recycling – we could all be reusing them again and again – refilling with juice or water, to send in our children’s packed lunches, for example. Remember to firstly reduce, secondly reuse and then recycle!”
Further information about waste and recycling in Suffolk can be found at www.suffolkrecycling.org.uk for further information about these trees, please visit the Creative Youngsters urged to Think Green web page.
Caroline Fish can be contacted on 01473 260687.