Metal Matters!

Metal matters and it can be endlessly recycled in to new items from cars to kettles – that’s the message that children from two East Devon primary schools have been learning over the last few weeks as part of a district-wide campaign asking residents to recycle more metal.

East Devon District Council and its partners SUEZ recycling and recovery UK, are calling on households to recycle more of their drinks cans, food tins, deodorant cans, aluminium food trays, foil and metal jar and bottle lids in their green recycling sacks which are collected every week from the kerbside.

Pupils from Marpool Primary School in Exmouth and Littletown Primary Academy in Honiton have been taking part in workshops over the last few weeks to learn about how important metal is and how easy it is to recycle. They learnt about the different food packaging made of metal, such as food and drink cans, biscuit tins, jam jar lids, foil trays and aerosols and talked about the recycling containers the children had in their homes to collect the items.

Residents will have the opportunity to find out more about recycling metals at three Metal Matters roadshows being held in the district next week. The roadshow will visit Honiton Tesco on Tuesday 16 October (tomorrow), Axminster Tesco on Thursday 18 October and Exmouth Tesco on Friday 19 October.

Metals are the most valuable items that are collected in East Devon’s kerbside recycling collections and the magical thing about metal is that it’s 100% recyclable. There’s no limit to the number of times it can be recycled and turned into new things. Recycling metals is both good for the environment and saves money – recycling a can uses 20 times less energy than making a new one.

Over the last few weeks, residents have received information through their doors as part of the campaign showing them the metals that they can collect, and explaining why they are so valuable and what happens to them. There’s more information about metals and recycling on the council’s website at www.eastdevon.gov.uk

Cllr Tom Wright, East Devon District Council’s portfolio holder for the environment, said that recycling metals is good for the environment and good for the economy. He said: “Our residents have really embraced East Devon’s recycling system and are recycling more than ever.

“Metals are the most valuable thing we can recycle and we are asking residents to recycle even more of their tins, cans, aerosols and foil so we can all play our part in recovering the Earth’s valuable resources. Please make every can count.”

The MetalMatters programme is an industry partnership involving leading producers, users and recyclers in the UK and is managed by the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro) on behalf of these funding partners.

Photo caption: Metal Matters! Children from Marpool Primary School taking part in a workshop with Nicola Jones, (back, right) from Tata Steel and Kate Cole, (back, centre) programme manager for the MetalMatters campaign from Alupro.