School recycling project turns bottles to benches

Barratt Homes has teamed up with recycling and waste management company, Powerday, to help school children celebrate Recycle Week (17th – 23rd June) with an initiative that has seen plastic milk bottles exchanged for garden furniture made entirely from recycled plastic bottles.

The campaign forms part of the Barratt Homes Education Programme and was designed to demonstrate to children how rubbish can be saved from landfill and be used to make viable products.

The 14 schools were challenged to collect as many plastic bottles as possible for recycling in a bin provided by Powerday. After a fortnight, the bins full of empty milk bottle containers were removed by Powerday and replaced by brightly coloured benches and picnic tables made from recycled plastic milk bottles.

Gary Ennis, Southern Region Managing Director for Barratt Developments said: “Barratt Homes is committed to recycling at our developments and see sustainability as an extremely important issue. The Recycle Week activity has been a fun and interesting way to teach younger people about the importance of recycling and we hope that it will inspire the pupils to continue recycling in the future.”

Powerday is responsible for managing the construction and demolition waste for Barratt Homes from sites in the Southern Region. The companies have been working together since 2010 to achieve Barratt Homes’ environmental targets.

Simon Little, Sales & Marketing Director at Powerday said: “We are very pleased to deliver this Recycle Week challenge with Barratt Homes and to help children understand both the importance of recycling and the benefits of doing so.”