pic: Dominick
Croydon Council is encouraging residents to recycle unwanted metal in the borough’s new ‘Metal Matters’ campaign.
Leaflets will soon be dropping through letterboxes reminding people to recycle all metal. The campaign comes as the government introduced new rules in December aimed at stamping out the illegal metal industry that costs the UK at least £220 million a year.
Croydon MP Richard Ottaway is also working with the government to ensure his Scrap Metal Dealers Bill delivers a stronger and more effective licencing regime for the scrap metal industry.
Due to steep rises in the price of metal, people have been stealing and selling it on the black market. Railway cable, war memorials and railings have all gone missing.
Ottaway told East London Lines: “Metal theft is a distressing and destructive problem that affects individuals, communities and businesses right across the country.”
The bill is expected to receive parliamentary approval in the coming year. Compulsory recycling of other materials is already in place across the borough.
The council is urging residents to place food tins, drink cans, aerosol cans, foil, metal bottle tops and jar lids into recycling boxes. Anything else made of metal can be taken to one of Croydon’s three refuse and recycling centres.
A Croydon Council spokesperson said: “If people recycle metal more it might depress the prices as more is available for re-use.
“If prices go down people may not deal in metal illegally but we would need an awful lot more recycling.”
Metal recycling facts:
• Recycling a tonne of steel saves 1.5 tonnes of iron ore and reduces CO2 emissions by 80%
• Recycling a tonne of aluminium saves 9 tonnes of C02 emissions and four tonnes of bauxite – the raw material from which aluminium is made
• Metal can be recycled indefinitely
• Recycling seven cans saves enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for 26 hours
• In as little as six weeks, the empty can you put in your recycling could be transformed and back on the supermarket shelf.
