We’re pleased to announce that the council has been awarded a grant of £25,000 to spend on litter bins around St Mary’s. The money will be used to replace the green general waste bins with new heritage-style litter bins, improving the public realm and enhancing the special features of the conservation area. It will also allow us to purchase more dual litter and recycling units to promote ‘on-the-go’ recycling, as well as a further two dog poo bins. We hope to have the new bins in place by the autumn.
The funding is from the ‘Resource Action Fund Binfrastructure grant’ and is managed by WRAP, a charity specialising in sustainable resource use, on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
As part of the roll-out of the new litter bins, the council is also launching ‘Bag it and Bin it’ and ‘Any Bin Will Do’ public information campaigns to help alleviate concerns over dog-fouling and litter bin provision. We encourage our community to help us get the message across that it is easy to dispose of bagged dog poo safely - you can put it in general litter bins, specific dog poo bins or in your domestic bins at home.
Currently the grant can only be used for the provision of bins on St Mary’s, however, we are exploring how we can best support our off-island communities through other opportunities.
Councillor Steve Sims, Lead Member for Place, said: "We are really pleased to have been successful in achieving grant funding from WRAP to help us purchase new litter and recycling bins. The extra provision of recycling units will hopefully enable more people, especially visitors, to recycle more items on-the-go. Disposing of litter and dog waste properly helps keep Scilly special and the council would like to thank all those litter heroes in the community who help pick up litter when they’re out and about."
Claire Shrewsbury, Director Insights and Innovation WRAP, said: “We are pleased to be able to support the Council of the Isles of Scilly to improve and expand its Binfrastructure network by grant support that has been made available through the Resource Action Fund. Resource efficiency projects such as this will help us achieve our goal of diverting and reducing waste, and better managing resources.”
If you would like to know more about littering and what you can do to help, please visit the Litter & Dog Fouling page on our website.
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The Resource Action Fund is an £18 million fund, provided by Defra and managed by WRAP, which supports resource efficiency projects in England in the key areas of food, plastics, textiles, recycling and litter. It does so through a variety of mechanisms including large and small-scale grants.
WRAP is an environmental charity founded in 2000 which works with governments, businesses and citizens to create a world in which we source and use resources sustainably. Its work spans the entire lifecycle of the food we eat, the clothes we wear and the products we buy, from production to consumption and beyond. You can find out more about WRAP at www.wrap.org.uk.