Around Ealing Winter 2015-16 | Page 16

RECYCLING Gift s that keep on giving Thousands of tonnes of plastic were collected for recycling by Ealing Council last year. Why not make a new year’s resolution to give your plastic a second chance? Deborah Dickey reports. P lastic is a useful material, but its popularity is a big problem. We use 20 times as much plastic today as we did 50 years ago, but the council’s plastics recycling collection means that most of it can be collected, recycled and reused which is good for the environment, and for our pockets. Plastic that is thrown away in black bags goes straight to landfill. This is bad news for the environment and it costs money, because the council is taxed for every tonne of rubbish that is thrown away and not recycled. The Christmas and new year festivities are likely to create a small mountain of plastic that can be put out for recycling. The good news is that it is easy to recycle it. A wide range of plastics can be recycled through the household collection service and at Acton and Greenford re-use and recycling centres. From next spring, most household 16 around ealing Winter 2015/16