Tower Hamlets Council slashes Whitechapel market rubbish

5 August 2008

TOWER Hamlets Council in east London has set up an ambitious new recycling campaign to cut rubbish by up to 88pc at one of London's busiest markets.

It established the scheme, involving new recycling bins and frequent collections, so that traders at Whitechapel Market will be able to deal with food waste and packaging, especially cardboard.

A council spokeswoman said the traders had embraced the scheme enthusiastically.

After a three-month pilot project, Atiqur Rahman, who has been operating a fruit and vegetable stall at Whitechapel for more than two decades, said the dedicated bins for organic waste and packaging were making a big difference.

"The floor’s much cleaner. There used to be a lot of rubbish lying around and other businesses and people in flats used our bins for their rubbish," he said.

The traders must now separate their organic waste – which may be rotting vegetables or fish heads, for example – and put it in green bins. These are collected twice daily.

The separate bins for organics and dry recyclables – such as plastic bags, cardboard and polystyrene – are fitted with locks so that other people in the area cannot use them overnight and probably contaminate the contents, which are sent for recycling rather than landfill.

The new bins provided by Tower Hamlets Council mean that about nine tonnes of organic waste and 9.5 tonnes of dry recycling will be sent for recycling each week. This would be an 88pc increase on the amount diverted before the scheme was trialled three months ago.

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