Michelle Tate from Groundwork North East and Cumbria spoke about recycling and waste in the region following recent council recycling project.
Groundwork is a national organisation that established a trust in the North East in 1985 to help meet the needs of communities suffering following the pit closures.
They have worked tirelessly over the years to deliver more than 350 projects since they merged in 2009 to create Groundwork North East, with Cumbria joining the operational area in 2010.
Tate described the organisation as: “A social enterprise charity and there remit is basically to improve the lives of people across the north of England, including where they live, work and play.
“Part of that is about looking at waste and ways they can improve where they live and how people can get involved.”
During the interview Michelle speaks in depth about the benefits of recycling and the positives of the proposed government bans on single use plastic items that have been in the news recently, as well as speaking about what the public can do to help.
She also spoke about the need to recycle and manage waste by talking about the problems it can cause with some plastic items taking around 500 years to decompose.
On top of this she gave a mention to her role in the ‘Be a better recycler’ campaign ran by Sunderland City Council which encourages residents to recycle by making them aware of the issues.
The campaign offers rewards to residents of Sunderland in the form of £50 worth of shopping vouchers.
To be eligible for the prize residents must pledge to recycle better by putting the correct rubbish in the correct waste bin.
Alongside this Groundwork will be running roadshows around the city to promote recycling in a bid to educate the communities on the matter and visitors have the potential to win £1000 by guessing how much rubbish is in a recycling bin.
You can see the locations of the roadshows along with times and dates in the map below, along with some Sunderland based recycling locations.
You can watch the full interview in the video below: