Recolight partners with Tewkesbury Borough Council for light bulb recycling

Tewkesbury Borough Council is leading the way for recycling in Gloucestershire once again by offering residents the opportunity to recycle their energy saving light bulbs.

The council has installed five recycling banks across the borough for residents to recycle their old energy saving light bulbs. This new service, which is being offered in partnership with recycling specialist Recolight, expands the types of material the council offers for recycling.

Energy saving light bulbs can not be recycled using the council’s recycling scheme’s blue bins and previously the only other points for recycling the bulbs were the centres at Wingmoor Farm and Hempsted.

The specially designed collection containers are available at five public on-street recycling sites around the borough:

• Bishop’s Cleeve (in the Tesco recycling centre)
• Brockworth (in the Tesco recycling centre)
• Churchdown (Parish Council office car park)
• Tewkesbury (Morrison’s recycling centre)
• Winchcombe (Back Lane car park)

The collected light bulbs will be sent to approved treatment facilities where the individual components of glass, plastic, and metal are separated and recycled to make new items. The mercury from each bulb is safety removed and recycled too.

As well as the local collection facilities, Tewkesbury Borough Council has also launched Recolight’s CoBRA volunteer recycling scheme to residents of the borough.

CoBRA is an initiative where volunteers take responsibility for collecting used low-energy light bulbs in their local area. The volunteers receive an equipment pack including a small specially designed collection bin which can be placed in a community location of their choice, such as a village shop, post office or village hall. They then take responsibility for collecting the waste light bulbs and taking them to a central collection facility ready for collection and recycling.

Recolight CEO Nigel Harvey said;

“This is an important and exciting partnership which will open up vital new channels for the public to recycle their old low-energy light-bulbs. People want to recycle their old bulbs but are often unsure of where the nearest facilities are. The containers will be visible to everyone in Tewkesbury Borough and we hope that this and the CoBRA scheme will help make a difference to recycling in the local area.”

Julie Davies, Environmental Development Officer at Tewkesbury Borough Council said;

“This scheme will enable us to expand our recycling service even further and offer easy low-energy light bulb recycling for residents across the borough. The recycling banks are in popular spots and we hope the partnership and the volunteering scheme will help us to improve our recycling performance.”