Newspaper deal saves tonnes of paper

Associated Newspapers, which publishes the London Lite, and NI Free Newspapers, which publishes thelondonpaper, agreed last year to pay for the installation and emptying of 70 recycling bins to deal with discarded papers.

The bins finally hit the streets across the West end in January this year, and have so far collected 120 tonnes of paper. The council’s own bins have collected a further 465 tonnes of paper.

City Council chiefs said the agreement with the two publishers had saved the equivalent of 1,920 trees – double the number in St James’ Park.

They are now in talks with Associated Newspapers, which also publishes the Metro, to boost recycling rates further.

As revealed on edie earlier this month, increasing circulations of some newspapers, including the Metro, have caused the amount of newspapers found in residual rubbish to creep back up after initially dropping when the scheme first started.

Commenting on the results of the first six months, the City Council’s environment chief Councillor Danny Chalkley said: “This unique agreement is making a tangible difference to the cleanliness of the streets of Westminster and the environment at large.

“However, we are not complacent and we realise there is still a lot of work we can do to improve recycling rates.

“We are still in positive talks with Associated Newspapers and hope we can boost our recycling rates even further.”

Council studies have shown that the West End has the highest concentration of newspapers in waste collected from the streets in its authority area. It accounts for 24% of all street waste.

Kate Martin