Texts spread the message on how to stay green in Capital

Published on Tuesday 2 December 2008 09:13

EDINBURGH residents are to be among the first in Scotland to be sent text messages to remind them to recycle.

The service, which is being provided by a private company in partnership with the city council, will use text alerts to highlight upcoming recycling and refuse collections.

Users sign-up for the scheme online by entering their post code into the website for provider GreenBoxDay.

They are then sent text messages, costing 25p each, alerting them to collections in their area.

Councillor Robert Aldridge, the city's environment leader, said: "Edinburgh residents have well and truly got the recycling bug and we are delighted that we remain on course to reach our 30 per cent recycling target for 2008-9.

"We are doing everything we can to make it as easy as possible for people to follow the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle message and I'm sure these text message reminders will give a helping hand."

The scheme came into being after independent website GreenBoxDay contacted the city council and were provided with the local authority's collection schedules.

The company originally offered a free e-mail service for users, but extended the scheme to mobile phones after requests from customers.

Humphrey Dunn, from GreenBoxDay.co.uk, said: "We are delighted to announce the launch of our new text messaging service for the city. It provides yet another way to keep informed about recycling in Edinburgh."

Edinburgh is one of the first local authorities in Scotland to sign-up for the scheme which operates in a number of English towns. Last month, city leaders agreed to extend the opening hours at recycling centres across the Capital.

The new hours will mean the sites are open to the public for an extra 1000 hours a year.

Council chiefs claim the move could result in as much as a 30 per cent increase in on-site recycling and a three per cent increase in the overall recycling rate.

Charlotte Encombe, of environmental group Greener Leith, welcomed the scheme, but said more needed to be done to encourage the public to reuse materials, rather than simply recycle them.

She said: "This is something that Greener Leith itself had been considering, but I'm very pleased to be pipped to the post. It's a fantastic idea because people do forget when to put their bins out.

"The next thing we need to move into is reusing materials and looking at schemes such as charging a deposit for drinks bottles so that they can be returned to shops like they do on the Continent."