Doncaster shoppers urged to focus on recycling as Lakeside Village takes pledge to become more environmentally friendly

At the start of the year, the management team at Lakeside Village pledged to increase the overall recycling rate to 80 per cent, offer recycling opportunities to customers for clothes, coffee cups, batteries, and printer cartridges and arrange quarterly litter picks with local businesses.

Lyndsey Parry, deputy centre manager at Lakeside Village said: “Before the pandemic forced retail closures, recycling at the centre stood at 77 per cent and we are working to improve this figure during 2021.

“We are proud of our achievements in this area and believe that we all have a responsibility for the environment and working together we can reduce our waste and our impact on our local surroundings.

“The opportunity to recycle at the centre is growing and being reviewed regularly.

“The Lakeside Village recycling centre, located in the indoor Guest Service area, is a place where customers can recycle plastic bottles, household batteries, PPE (disposable face masks, plastic gloves, visors, face screens, earplugs, plastic overalls and clothing covers), inkjet toner and cartridges.”

Customers can recycle their old clothes by donating them to the Bag it for Bluebell which takes place once a month.

There is also a clothing unit for Next Best Clothing Ltd located in the car park that accepts unwanted clothes, shoes, accessories and household items - customers are paid 50p per tonne.

“Costa and Greggs offer free water refills if customers bring in their own bottles, and Costa is also selling reusable lids for their cups,” she continued.

“The Body Shop Outlet offers refills for their hand washes and has a lot of new recyclable packaging.”

The Next Outlet offers an electronic waste collection service, for customers ordering via click and collect.

Lyndsey said: “We have recently added a recycling monster bin in the outdoor play area to encourage children to recycle plastic bottles and cans.

“There is always more to do and the reason we made our pledges at the start of the year was to hold ourselves accountable for making a difference.

“Our next litter pick will take place in August, and we are always interested in hearing from customers with suggestions for other ways we could help with recycling.”

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