Glass ‘heading for landfill’

The council’s final door-to-door glass box collection will be on March 29.

It is placing 11 new bottle banks around North Kirklees, taking the number of banks to 52, in the hope residents will deposit their empties rather than putting them in their grey bins.

But readers said on our Facebook pages this week they did not believe people would continue to recycle their glass.

Barrie John Minett, Sarah Smith, Tony Moran and Martin Steer all predicted glass would end up in grey bins.

Lesley Anne Taylor said: “I never had a glass box to start with as it was stolen the day they dropped them off and I don’t have transport to get to bottle bins, so the grey bin will have to do as it always has done.”

Nigel Heywood said: “We use the glass box regularly and we are lucky to live so close to a supermarket with glass recycling in the car park.

“I don’t think people will bother, they’ll just chuck it in the bin with rest of the household waste – and we might even see more smashed bottles on the streets again.”

Tracy Scott said: “You will find that a lot less people will recycle their bottles when they stop the collections. We won’t be using the bins as we don’t have transport.”

Yvonne Butterworth said: “I will be using my glass box to grow tomatoes in so I’m still doing my recycling bit, and my glass will still go to the bottle bank in the supermarket car park.”

And Matt Smith added: “The glass boxes was a convenient way of doing your bit. Not everyone has the means of getting to a communal bottle bin. Shame on you Kirklees for sacking it.”

The council decided to scrap the Kirklees wide collection service last year to save £234,000 annually.

A council spokeswoman said: “The locations for new sites have been identified and the bottle bins delivered.

“Residents may keep the boxes if they wish and we would encourage them to use them to store bottles and transport them to their nearest bottle bank. Anyone not wanting their box can contact us via Kirklees Direct or the web site.

“Glass should not be placed in general recycling bins.”

Click on the link to the right of this story for a list of all the bottle banks in North Kirklees.