News
Reducing, reusing and recycling at the Marlowes Shopping Centre
The ‘Big Recycling Hunt’ was held in the Marlowes Shopping Centre earlier this month to mark the start of Recycle Week, an annual campaign which is a celebration of recycling across the UK.
The event was run in conjunction with Hemel Hempstead Business Improvement District (BID) Business Improvement District (BID) on Saturday 14 October.
On the day, there was a display of local endangered species that children from local schools and youth groups had made out of rubbish and recycling, emphasising the need to reuse our rubbish to reduce the amount that we are putting into our refuse and recycling bins. This doubled up as a way to raise awareness of Hertfordshire’s local species which are in decline and of the need to protect these.
Visitors to the display were encouraged to take part in a ‘hunt’ for different materials used in each of the sculptures, and to identify which of our household bins should be used to dispose of or recycle each of the materials.
Several local organisations ran activities to amplify these important messages for children and their families:
- Anna’s Funky Art and Nysa Projects showed the kids how to turn rubbish into something beautiful
- Frogmore Paper Mill demonstrated how to make paper from just a few ingredients.
- Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust and Sunnyside Rural Trust taught local residents how to make our gardens more wildlife friendly and
- Imajica Theatre put on a brilliant performance of ‘Heidi’s New Shell’, a production to raise awareness among young people about the way in which we can make the world a brighter place to live.
Cllr Robin Bromham, our Portfolio Holder for Neighbourhood Operations, said: “The Big Recycling Hunt was a brilliant day to teach local families about the importance of reducing and recycling our waste, and how critical it is to care for our local endangered wildlife. We would like to say a big ‘thank you’ to all of the organisations who kindly contributed their time and resources to make the event such a success.”
The winning sculptures, created by South Hill Primary School, Second Chaulden Guides and Westbrook Hay Prep School, were chosen by a panel of judges, according to their use of materials, locality of the species and the resemblance to the animal.
A ‘Community Choice’ award was given to Potten End Primary School, whose sculpture received the most engagement on our Facebook channel. Each of the winning schools and youth groups have been presented with a recycling or biodiversity-themed experience day for their children to learn more about the topics.
For more information about the climate and waste-related campaigns and competitions we run throughout the year for schools and youth groups, visit our Schools Recycling webpage.