Westminster recycling initiative comes to Marylebone

Westminster City Council has claimed that businesses in Marylebone could save more than £30,000 collectively by signing up to its new recycling scheme.

After the success of a trial in Mayfair, Westminster City Council has expanded its new environmental initiative and hopes to encourage small businesses to increase the amount of waste they recycle.

This will be achieved by providing daily evening collections of business recycling bags, in a scheme that will help the environment, and deliver value for money.

Since the start of the Mayfair evening recycling scheme in December 2008, the recycling vehicle has collected a total of 1,124 tonnes of materials to be recycled, the equivalent of 160 Routemaster buses.

Choosing to recycle this material using the blue recycling bags rather than grey refuse bags has also saved businesses more than £31,000.

This service is now available to businesses in Marylebone, which can opt to do their bit for the environment by recycling everything from paper, cardboard and plastic packaging to food cartons, cans, and empty aerosols using the daily bag collection service.

Councillor Ed Argar, Westminster City Council's cabinet member for city management, said: "We have a huge number of small businesses in Westminster, and we understand that they've got a lot on their plate dealing with the current economic hardships, so anything we can do which makes life easier for them at the same time as helping the environment, is a bonus.

"We know the vast majority of people want to do their bit for the environment, but one of the biggest barriers to recycling is time and convenience, rather than not wanting to recycle. I would urge as many businesses in Marylebone as possible to take advantage of this scheme."