Collecting a Greater Number of Materials – Recycling Centres

The Challenge:

Services which enable people to recycle from home can only ever collect a limited range of materials. This leaves a huge number of other items, from scrap metal to white goods which aren’t being recycled.

Historically, civic amenity centres have served as a place to dump unwanted goods and their role as a place to recycle has only been a fairly recent phenomenon. This tradition often means that people still do not realise the range of items they can take along for recycling at centres.

The Solution:

In 2001 May Gurney Environmental Services opened a state of the art recycling centre in partnership with the London Borough of Barnet. Designed to be easy to use, the centre aims to maximise the amount of rubbish being recycled by accepting as many types of materials as possible.

May Gurney always ensures that the centre is well staffed so that users learn how best to use the service and what they can bring along for recycling.

As well as accepting the items collected by May Gurney doorstep service, the centre also takes books, electrical items, fluorescent tubes, fridges, furniture, green waste, plastic, scrap metal, tyres, white goods, paint, wood and much more.

The Result:

The centre has already achieved a recycling rate of 50 per cent and in a recent survey of 100 civic amenity sites, was commended as one of the top six sites in the country. We now also operate highly effectively recycling and reuse centres throughout the country including in the London Borough of Ealing, Walsall and Sandwell in the East Midlands.