If you’ve sent a press release to my personal ntlworld.com email address over the last few weeks and are disappointed not to have seen your news covered in Cleanzine, or you’ve contacted me for other reasons and felt I’ve been rudely ignoring you, please accept my apologies. My Virgin Media webmail’s been inaccessible for three weeks and the engineers are still trying to fix things. Could I please ask you to use the main address [email protected] in future instead? And if you could also forward anything you’ve sent over the past month, to that address, I’d be grateful. I’d like to start catching up on what I’ve missed! 

In scouring the Web for news I could use to fill the last couple of broadcasts, I’ve discovered new companies, associations, innovative ideas and some interesting stories I plan on following up, so it’s not all been bad… 

One initiative is the Beetles Gel Polish and international recycling specialist TerraCycle’s, ‘Beetles Loves Earth Free Recycling Program’, aimed at boosting the recycling of empty glass gel/nail polish bottles in the US - from any brand - along with their plastic caps. Apparently these aren’t accepted in most kerbside recycling programs due to residual product, complex cleaning needs and processing costs that can outweigh recovered material value. Once processed, the items will be used to manufacture products such as bricks, cement and concrete. To encourage people to take part, Beetles will offer tiered rewards, (think products, coupons and gift boxes) based on the number of eligible bottles returned. As well as having drop-off points at all its stores, Beetles plans to develop a mail-in option and will also offer ‘Ambassador’ status to supporters interested in hosting a collection bin. 

Another initiative of which I’d not been aware is Greene King Brewery’s ‘Tub2Pub’, which aims to recycle the thousands of polypropylene plastic tubs of sweets/biscuits we Brits buy around Christmas time - since not all domestic kerbside recycling collections will accept them (something else that’s new to me). Companies and individuals collect the tubs and take them to their local Greene King pub from where they’re despatched to a specialist recycling company. This year’s campaign saw almost 295,000 tubs collected - an increase of over 20% on last year – and the sale of the 33.74 tonnes of recycled plastic resulted in a £10,122 donation for charity partner Macmillan Cancer Support. Since its launch in 2021, Tub2Pub has collected 88,435Kg of plastic, (around 769,000 tubs) raising £45,369 for the charity.

Know of any more like these? I’d love to learn about them!