Chipping Norton residents are asked to become superheroes and rescue recyclable items from bins

To tie in with the 'Rescue Me' theme for this year's Recycle Week (October 14 – 20) West Oxfordshire District Council is asking residents if they can save just one more recyclable item from their rubbish bins.

"Whether it’s an empty shampoo bottle that’s gone into the bathroom bin and is destined for general waste, or a foil takeaway container that no one wants to wash up, if everyone in the district saved just one more recyclable item a week from the rubbish bin it would add up to almost 6 million items over the course of a year,” said a spokesman.

West Oxfordshire’s recycling rates are among the best in the country and the council currently sits at position 20 of 343 local authorities in the recycling league table for England, with residents sending most of their waste for reusing, recycling or composting.

But recent analysis of waste bins in West Oxfordshire showed that 43 per cent of their contents could have been recycled at the kerbside.

Giles Hughes, Chief Executive of West Oxfordshire District Council, said: “The analysis we recently carried out showed that recyclable items are still making up a considerable amount of the waste that goes into our rubbish bins. By weight, paper accounts for 9 per cent of the average bin’s contents, card 4 per cent, textiles 4 per cent and metal 2.5 per cent.

"However, the material most unnecessarily condemned to the rubbish bin is food waste, accounting for a massive 25 per cent of the contents of the district's bins by weight. Just 11 per cent of this is what we class as 'unavoidable' waste, such as peelings and eggshells, while the rest is wasted food, half of which is still in its original packaging.

"If this food was placed into caddies and left at the kerbside, it would be taken to the Severn Trent anaerobic digestion facility and used to generate electricity and produce bio-fertiliser to help grow more food.

“We all lead busy lives and it can be hard to predict how much food we will need each week, but it’s important we all try not to waste food. It’s estimated that around 6-8 per cent of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced if we stopped throwing away food.

“The data is showing that although we are doing really well with our recycling in the district, we need to be recycling even more of the right things. This Recycle Week and beyond we encourage residents to rescue at least one more recyclable item from their bins, particularly food.”

Using recycled materials to make new products can use up to 95 per cent less energy than making them from scratch and saves the damage caused to communities and land in the sourcing of new raw materials. While a comparatively small amount of metal goes into the district’s bins, steel cans and aluminium foil are endlessly recyclable with no loss of quality, which makes them an exceptionally valuable resource.

Householders who are unsure what they can put into their blue-lidded recycling bin should visit: www.westoxon.gov.uk/bins-and-recycling/what-to-put-in-your-bin/

For anything that can’t be recycled at the kerbside, the Oxfordshire Waste Wizard online tool can help See www.westoxon.gov.uk/wastewizard