Bright Ideas from the “Switched On” Guys at Tewkesbury Council

Date: 18/4/2011

Being an Ambassador bulb definitely has its advantages – I get to go out and about, explore the world and meet brilliant people who are the leading lights in helping make light bulb recycling as simple as possible. Last week I went to visit the good people of Tewkesbury Borough Council who have set up new facilities to help their residents recycle old low energy light bulbs.

 

People there used to only have two places to go; I helped open five Bulbstore Maxi recycling banks at:

• Bishop's Cleeve (in the Tesco recycling centre)
• Brockworth (in the Tesco recycling centre)
• Churchdown (Parish Council office car park)
• Tewkesbury (Morrison's recycling centre)
• Winchcombe (Back Lane car park)

Recolight send round a truck to empty the bins once they’re full taking the old bulbs to approved facilities where the glass, plastic, and metal bits that make up the bulb are separated and recycled to make new items. The mercury from each bulb is safety removed and recycled too.

 

The council is also on the lookout for CoBRA volunteers to register for a Bulbstore Mini and put it in a community location like a village shop, post office or village hall, to collect old bulbs from the community.

 

I had a chat with Julie Davies, the Environmental Development Officer at the Council, who told me that “this scheme will enable us to expand our recycling service even further and offer easy low-energy light bulb recycling for residents across the borough. The recycling banks are in popular spots and we hope the partnership and the volunteering scheme will help us to improve our recycling performance.”

 

So do we Julie!

 

And I’ll keep you all updated on how they get on in Gloucestershire.

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