CRATE news for all Suffolk Coastal residents – here's your chance to recycle more!This week council staff have started visiting more than 50,000 homes in the district to deliver a new green recycling crate, part of a new project being funded by a £364,000 government grant.

CRATE news for all Suffolk Coastal residents – here's your chance to recycle more!

This week council staff have started visiting more than 50,000 homes in the district to deliver a new green recycling crate, part of a new project being funded by a £364,000 government grant.

It will mean households from Felixstowe to Framlingham, Kirton to Knodishall, will be able to recycle paper every fortnight in future.

The schemes kicks off in April and council officials are aiming to make sure all the crates, which will enable people to store their newspapers, old paper, junk mail and catalogues, are delivered by then.

Chris Slemmings, cabinet member for the environment, said: "This is a major exercise and shows how seriously this council takes recycling.

"The crates are just one part of this major investment which has been backed by the Government. From April we will also have an additional Duo vehicle, meaning we will now have three refuse freighters especially designed to collect both domestic rubbish and paper for recycling.

"This helps us to be more environmentally friendly as the Duos do the job of two normal vehicles by collecting rubbish and paper at the same times, cutting down the number of vehicles on the road.

"We are also delivering a 20 page recycling guide, a list of recycling sites, and a sticker for the box, to ensure that all our residents know why it is so important to get into the recycling habit, and how easy it is to do it."

At present only half of the homes in the district have their paper collected every fortnight, with over 10,000 homes missing out on any paper collection at all.

From April all but 2,000 homes in the most rural parts of the district will get their papers collected every two weeks, and the council plans to link up with even these missing homes in the Autumn.

"This is just the start of a major push on recycling over the next few months, with an expansion coming soon in our successful Coastal Ploughback scheme covering more homes and the introduction of dozens of new local recycling points," said Mr Slemmings.

"We are committed to encouraging more recycling, the government is backing us, and the most important part of this partnership has to be our residents."

WEBLINK: www.suffolkcoastal.gov.uk