A young Londoner has put MPs to shame with her innovative ideas for plastic waste recycling after submitting a winning entry to the Wastebuster Competition. The Wastebuster Competition recognises and rewards “recycling heroes”, giving winners the chance to present their ideas in the Houses of Parliament and so see their plans put into action. The competition runs alongside Wastebuster educational schemes which seek to promote an informed and dynamic approach to reducing waste (whilst actively doing so in the process). One of this year’s winners, Iona Phillips is just eight years old, but her eco-conscious ideas are far beyond her years, as she proved in her presentation to the Primary Earth Summit, outlining her plans to collect and display plastic waste found in the Thames in a creative whale shaped model on Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth. It seems Iona’s quirky upcycling ideas would not only make a push for rubbish removal from the Thames, but also make for a more attractive London!
Iona’s artwork will be displayed on the Fourth Plinth. Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0
Certainly, Iona’s story is inspiring, because if one young girl can put recycling into context so efficiently, surely we can all start thinking a little harder about how we get rid of our waste. In London it’s even made easy for us, with so many recycling and rubbish collection options right on our doorstep. We have wide-ranging options in our city, from recycling to Freecycling to upcycle – and Iona has restored the sense of hope in our ability to make a difference. Whilst we may not all be able to turn our plastic waste into a sculptural whale, we can ensure it never makes it into the Thames and so attempt to prevent further instances of the terrible waste problems we are struggling to cure.
Perhaps when it comes to plastic recycling we simply don’t know enough, the eternal dilemma of – what DOES that little triangle-arrow-number malarkey actually mean? Yet looking just a little harder at most supermarket packaging will give you a pretty straightforward idea of what’s hot and what’s not when it comes to the recycle bin. London councils have also put together some useful guides, so now it’s down to us to make it happen. A quick look at the advice on offer shows just how simple it is to wise up and rise up to the plastic recycling challenge.
Now that’s your everyday plastic waste covered, but it’s a slightly different story with larger items that may not be taken with the regular rubbish collection, or may not be discernibly recyclable. In cases like these you may require a rubbish removal service like JunkWize who, for a small fee will collect and dispose of your waste in a responsible manner. These types of services are also available through local councils and will take away the stress of dealing with cumbersome or tricky loads, if you’re unsure about how to dispose of waste, employing the services of a waste removal service will certainly provide you with peace of mind, knowing your waste will be collected promptly and disposed of responsibly.
