Recycling

A - Z of Recycling - Sign up to your local group at www.freecycle.org/

Help the environment - save all those unwanted scraps of fabric, coloured foil packaging, sweet and chocolate wrappers and use your creative flair to turn them into attractive, decorative artforms for your home or a friend.

Ten weeks' courses run at Berkshire College of Agriculture from September 2000 commencing with one-day exploration workshops on 2 and 9 September 2000 . Phone or e-mail Karen Balding on 01628 661627 for further information.

Wildlife rescue and animal hospitals always need clean sheets, towels, blankets and bed linen for their patients. Also old newspapers and cleaning equipment. They can often make use of other items as well including baby foods and unwanted presents or knick knacks suitable for sale or raffles. Check out Wildlife Rescue or contact a local vet who may be able to help. Donations also welcome at Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, Priest Hill, Old Windsor, SL4 2JN Tel: 01784 432929.

Computer Aid International on 0171 281 0091 take old 486s and Pentiums for distribution to charities working in the Third World. Visit their website at www.computer-aid.org/

Computers For Charities is a non-profit making project launched in June 2000 by Computer Shopper Magazine as a means of using modern e-commerce business to benefit UK charities. This web-based initiative works with the co-operation of its sponsors who have agreed to donate computer and IT equipment on trust for various UK charities.

Digital Links International is a registered charity providing a comprehensive IT disposal service for UK companies, including collection and guaranteed data erasure. PCs are used to provide improved educational opportunities for young people in developing countries. Address: 3rd Floor, Downstream Building, 1 London Bridge, London, SE1 9BG. Tel: 0207 785 6261. Email: reuse@digital-links.org

Computer Salvage Specialists, Unit 5, Arnhem Road, Bone Lane Industrial Estate, Newbury RG14 5RU Tel 01635 552666 provide a recycling service to industry for all types of electronic waste, eg printer circuit boards, solder reclaim, special waste etc.

Your local authority has details of its kerbstep recycling collection schemes. Public recycling sites are found throughout Berkshire. See your local area to find out where.

Clear out all those clothes and clutter your children have grown out of. Advertise free or snap up a bargain at www.dimplemambo.co.uk based in Maidenhead.

Check in your local papers to find out the collecting points for Christmas cards. Many shops and Post Offices provide bins for unwanted Christmas cards during January and February. Similarly take your discarded tree to a civic amenity site for composting.

Slough Furniture Project will collect your unwanted furniture and household goods and make them available to people on benefit at affordable prices. Outlets are at Unit 1a, Wentworth Industrial Estate, Goodwin Road, Britwell and at 234 Trelawney Avenue Shopping Parade, Langley. If you have something to donate please telephone 01753 692535. 

Thames Valley Hospice Furniture Mart will collect furniture and household appliances. They have a shop at 22 Church Street, Herschel Industrial Estate, Slough open Monday - Saturday, 9.30 am - 5 pm. Tel: 01753 866303 to arrange collection.

In West Berkshire contact the Community Furniture Project which operates in the Newbury area.

For office furniture see Business.

Thames Valley and Chiltern Air Ambulance will take your old mobile phones which are sent on to developing countries. They will also take toner cartridges which will be refilled and recycled. The Air Ambulance raises about £50 a month from used mobile phones and up to £500 for toner cartridges which pays for fuel for the service.

Phone Stevie Horton on 01628 584210 to arrange collection (a minimum of 10 items is needed) or take to the Air Ambulance headquarters at Grove Park Estate, White Waltham, near Maidenhead, tel 01189 365612.

Phones for Africa funds two projects that help the poor make a living in Tanzania. Further details of the projects at www.cookfood.net/phonesforafrica

A similar scheme is operated by Oxfam, raising an average of £5 for the charity with each phone. The phones are recycled in an environmentally friendly manner and money raised goes to help Oxfam fight poverty through projects across the world. Details can be found at http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_you_can_do/recycle/phones.htm

Nappy laundering delivery services covering Berkshire:

• Nappy Tales, Unit 1 Hall Farm, South Morton, Oxon OX11 9AH 01235 812747
• Miranda Stamp, Twinkle Twinkle, Briley Cottage, Beggars Hill Road, Lands End, Twyford RG10 0UB 0118 934 2249
• Nappy Adventures, Bracknell, tel: 01344 444948

 

Rayne Vezir runs a weekly drop-in session every Friday between 1.30 pm and 2.30 pm at Parish Centre, All Saints Church, Boyn Hill Road, Maidenhead for parents who want to find out more about cloth nappies. Contact: e-mail nurrayne@hotmail.com or tel 07940 384 582

Polyprint Mailing Films will accept printed and unprinted polythene wrappers and bags for recycling from which all labels, sellotape, sticky residue and foreign objects have been removed. It takes approximately 200,000 polythene wrappers to make one tonne of recyclable waste which is turned into black plastic bin liners and fertiliser sacks.

For further details of this scheme click below or contact Polyprint Mailing Films, Mackintosh Road, Rackheath Industrial Estate, Rackheath, Norwich NR13 6LJ Tel: 01603 721807 or Fax: 01603 721813.

The charity Tools for Self Reliance collect, renovate and distribute unneeded tools via partner organisations to projects in Africa working under the ethos that practical assistance will enable poor people in developing countries to help themselves.

TFSR try to meet specific requests on the basis that the villagers know best what they need. Hand tools for a variety of trades are sought after including those for Woodworking, Building & Plumbing, Shoemaking, Car & Bicycle repair and Sewing. Hand or tredle round bobbin old Singer sewing machines are required or any make of modern electric machine.

Contact the TFSR representatives in Berkshire if you have something you think would be useful:

John Phillippo Reading and Wokingham. Tel: 0118 969 6148

Or visit their website at www.tfsr.org.uk

Bracknell Forest - in brown recycling banks at:
Albert Road Car Park; Civic Amenity Site, Longshot Lane; Rugy Club Car Park, Lilly Hill Road; Tesco Jiggs Lane; Tesco, Martins Heron, The Look Out, Nine Mile Road, Binfield Parish Council Car Park; Crown Row shops; Safeway, Sandhurst; Somerfield, Crowthorne; Sports Centre, Bracknell

Windsor & Maidenhead - in any mixed paper recycling bank, in the black box kerbside collection and at the Civic Amenity Site, Stafferton Way, Maidenhead

Reading - in orange mixed paper recycling banks at:
Tesco, King's Meadow; Hills Meadow Car Park; Meadway Precinct, Honey End Lane; Palmer Park; Rivermead Leisure Centre; Safeway, Basingstoke Road; Island Road, Civic Amenity Site; High Down School, Surley Row.

Slough - in the kerbside recycling bags or in 25 mixed paper banks.

Wokingham - in the black box kerbside collection and at Civic Amenity sites at Longshot Lane, Bracknell, Smallmead, Reading.

West Berkshire - in yellow recycling banks at:
Sainsbury's Savacentre, Calcot; Sainsbury's, Newbury; Pinchington Lane Civic Amenity Site, Newbury.

The directory recycling HOTLINE is 0800 783 1592

For more advice on Recycling visit the website www.greenchoices.org

For information on community waste management visit the Community Recycling Network at www.crn.org.uk