DOORSTEP glass recycling could come to Wokingham borough – but don’t stop going to the bottle banks yet.
On Tuesday, at a meeting of Reading Borough Council, Cllr Sophia James, the lead councillor for Neighbourhoods and Communities, told the chamber that considerations about picking up empties from homes were being made by re3 – the company that runs recycling and waste services for Bracknell Forest, Reading and Wokingham borough councils.
She said: “Any additional collection service will have to be fully considered, planned and project managed and whilst the re3 partnership is committed to exploring the collection of glass.
“The immediate focus for Reading Borough Council on waste, in 2020, must be on the successful introduction of our exciting new food waste service. However, in the meantime, and alongside our re3 partners at Bracknell Forest and Wokingham Borough Councils, I can confirm that we are beginning the process of investigating the feasibility of a glass collection service.
“The investigations will initially be reported to the re3 Board, later in 2020, and thereafter considered within each council.”
Wokingham Borough Council’s executive member for climate emergency, Cllr Gregor Murray, confirmed to The Wokingham Paper that discussions were taking place, but it wasn’t just a case of making a decision to go for it.
Any glass collection scheme, he said, would require at least one more additional recycling boxes for each home and extra collection vehicles. And it was felt that the current bottle banks scheme was working well and helped pre-sort glass into colours.
But at the same time, if the feasibility study shows that it will help councils achieve a carbon neutral status by 2030, it could be considered.
Cllr Murray added: “The (RE3) Board agreed at that meeting to do a feasibility study into collecting glass from the kerbside in some capacity as long as it meets certain criteria on increasing recycling and not adding to our carbon footprint.”
