Lakeside Village in Doncaster celebrates its Think Green success

The new area located in Guest Services comes in advance of Recycle Week 2022 (October 17-23) with the theme ‘Let’s Get Real’.

Lyndsey Parry, deputy centre manager at Lakeside Village said: “We are proud to be launching our new recycling area at Lakeside Village in time for next month’s Recycle Week 2022.

“The theme, ‘Let’s Get Real’, is a great way to challenge perceptions and myths around recycling, and target contamination to improve recycling behaviours.

“In our newly revamped recycling area customers can recycle bedding, PPE, printer cartridges, bras, batteries and plastic bottles.

“So far this year we have recycled 375 bags of clothing and bric-a-brac donated to the Doncaster and Rotherham branches of the RSPCA, some 20 large boxes of unwanted bras have been sent to help a cancer charity Against Breast Cancer Care, eight large boxes of batteries have been recycled.

“We’ve revamped the area to add in new recycling drop off bins and to encourage customers to think about the different things they can recycle and the impact that this will have on the environment.”

Lakeside Village has also this year recycled 82 tonnes of cardboard, 11.3 tonnes of soft plastic, 10.2 tonnes of food recycled to be made into renewable energy, 11.5 tonnes of mixed hard plastic and paper and printer cartridges.

Lyndsey added: “We are extremely proud of our green achievements so far and we have increased our onsite waste recycling to 80%, achieved zero to landfill and the management team, with partners, have continued our quarterly litter picks in our surrounding area to look after and maintain our local environment.

“We’ve also nominated a “Green Champion” for the centre and provide free electric vehicle charging for customers, with a view to increase the number of chargers next year.

“One of our latest initiatives is our Reading Corner where customers drop off their favourite reads, giving them a new life. Customers who love books and love reading are invited to take books home to read, they can then return them or replace them with more books so every visitor to Reading Corner has a chance to read something new.

“We are asking customers to ‘think before you throw’ and are really pleased to say that many of our stores also offer recycling opportunities.”

Customers can ‘shwop’ at M&S Outlet, where clean, pre-loved clothing can be dropped off (even if it's not from M&S). M&S will also collect household batteries to recycle.

At the Next Outlet, when customers replace a new electrical, electronic or batter-operated item with a new one from Next. They can simply bring their old item into store within 28 days, show the receipt for its replacement, and Next will take care of recycling it.

Hard to recycle plastics, like clean packaging pouches and make-up packaging, pumps and droppers, can be dropped off at The Body Shop to be repurposed for another life.

Costa and Greggs offer free water refills if customers bring in their own bottles, and Costa is also selling re-usable lids for their cups. Stores including The Works, ProCook, Cook N Dine, Next, Hallmark, Clintons, Trespass, Mountain Warehouse, Tog 24, all sell refillable water bottles.

In these confusing and worrying times, local journalism is more vital than ever. Thanks to everyone who helps us ask the questions that matter by taking out a subscription or buying a paper. We stand together. Liam Hoden, editor.