Wales environment minister launches UK’s largest Yellow Pages Recycling campaign - 26 November 2001
Environment minister Sue Essex is to launch a major new campaign in South Wales to recycle old Yellow Pages directories, the largest initiative of its kind in the UK.The move is a substantial regional expansion of a similar scheme run in Cardiff last year and will be officially launched by the minister at the National Assembly for Wales on December 5.
Sue Essex said: "As part of our commitment to recycling, as laid out in the new Waste Strategy for Wales, this scheme will certainly help deliver higher recycling rates in the areas covered. The comprehensive collection offers householders, schools and businesses a simple opportunity to get involved in recycling which will help Wales to become a more sustainable place to live."
The campaign is being organised by Cardiff Waste Forum and The Directory Recycling Scheme, which is sponsored by Yellow Pages. They collaborated last year on the successful initiative that collected Yellow Pages from schools and households in Cardiff.
This year, the scheme is running in four local authority areas: Rhondda-Cynon-Taff, The Vale of Glamorgan, Cardiff and Newport. More than 650,000 directories were delivered across these areas last year - if placed end to end, they would stretch from Cardiff to Llanelli and back again.
This year’s campaign encourages householders, schools and businesses to recycle their old Yellow Pages, which feature fish on the front cover - when the new edition of the directory is delivered during December and January.
The Directory Recycling Scheme is offering incentives to schools and residents to save old directories from landfill. In order to win a share of £4,000 of prize money, schools in the four areas are being challenged to collect the most Yellow Pages per area and the most per pupil head.
Householders will be able to recycle their Yellow Pages either through local skips or through the kerbside collections.* The Directory Recycling Scheme will also dedicate an area of young trees in a Woodland Trust woodland to four lucky residents whose directory is selected at random from the collections. To enter, householders are asked to put their name and telephone number clearly on the inside of the front cover of their old directory before recycling it.
Businesses are being offered a free collection service if they have more than thirty Yellow Pages to recycle.
All the directories collected will be recycled into a house insulation product, called Warmcel, by Excel Industries in Rassau, Ebbw Vale.
Adam Billiald, co-ordinator of The Directory Recycling Scheme, said: "The Cardiff Yellow Pages recycling campaign produced such brilliant results last year that we had no hesitation in offering our support to the campaign again. I am delighted that we have been able to extend our support this year. This will play a significant role in raising awareness of environmental issues amongst schools, households and businesses."
The Yellow Pages recycling campaign is a partnership project between the four local authorities, Cardiff Waste Forum, The Directory Recycling Project, CYLCH*, Severnside Recycling, Wastesavers Recycling, Career Paths, Excel Industries, The Environment Agency Wales and The Energy Efficiency Advice Centre.
