Recycle Week at Metrocentre
As part of Recycle Week, teams from Cumbria Waste Group and J&B Recycling will be at Metrocentre on Monday 14th September and Tuesday 15th September, helping to raise awareness of recycling, good waste management and what really happens to your recycling after it is collected.
Come and visit the team in Lower Yellow Mall and have a go at our recycling wheel! Spin the wheel, answer a recycling question correctly and you’ll receive a sweet treat as an instant prize.
Pop along, test your recycling knowledge and find out a little more about how we can all help Metrocentre recycle more.
What is Recycle Week All About?
Every day, thousands of people visit Metrocentre to shop, eat, drink and spend time – and behind the scenes, a significant operation is taking place to manage the waste all that activity generates responsibly.
From drinks bottles, food packaging and general waste disposed of by visitors, to cardboard, packaging, plastics and food waste generated by retailers, restaurants and other businesses, there are many different waste streams to manage across the centre.
This Recycle Week, we’re shining a light on what happens behind the scenes, what happens to recycling after it leaves Metrocentre, and why everyone who visits or works here has a part to play in helping us recycle more.
Metrocentre is committed to maximising the amount of waste that can be recycled and recovered, with a target recycling rate of 60%.
Achieving that requires much more than simply providing recycling bins.
We work closely with retailers and businesses across the centre to make it as easy as possible to separate materials correctly, identify opportunities to improve recycling and reduce the amount of recyclable material being lost through contamination.
Our waste management partner, Cumbria Waste Group, manages waste services and collections across the centre, supported by J&B Recycling, which processes recyclable materials collected from Metrocentre at its Materials Recovery Facility (MRF).
Working with experienced, compliant waste management partners means materials can be managed responsibly throughout their journey – from the point at which they are discarded at Metrocentre through to collection, sorting and onward recycling.
Why does it matter?
Recycling correctly has clear environmental benefits. Keeping materials such as cardboard, paper, metals and plastics in circulation reduces our reliance on virgin resources and helps make better use of materials that already exist.
But there is also an important financial consideration.
Well-segregated recyclable materials can be processed much more efficiently. Contaminated recycling, on the other hand, can require additional sorting and treatment – and in some cases may no longer be suitable for recycling at all.
Improving segregation therefore isn’t simply about hitting a recycling target. It helps Metrocentre reduce waste, manage costs more effectively and improve the overall environmental performance of the centre.
We need your help
Reaching our 60% recycling target is a shared effort. Whether you’re visiting Metrocentre for a few hours or working here every day, the choices you make when disposing of waste can make a real difference.
For our visitors and shoppers, it can be as simple as taking a few extra seconds to choose the right bin. Drinks containers, packaging, food and general waste all need to be disposed of correctly to give recyclable materials the best possible chance of being recovered. Putting the wrong item into a recycling bin can contaminate other materials and make them more difficult – or sometimes impossible – to recycle.
