01 March 2006 - Caroline Lucas, the Green Euro-MP for Hampshire, is to visit Gosport residents who want to join the rest of the borough in having a doorstep recycling service.

The council said the residents, who live on an estate off Green Lane in Hardway, that they would have a recycling collection last summer, but it still has not been introduced.

Keen recyclers from the estate take their paper, cans and bottles to nearby recycling banks and one couple, from Pipit Close, go so far as to take their recycling to Port Solent tip because it offers plastic recycling.

Caroline said: "These people are some of the most conscientious recyclers I have come across - and I am sure that more people on the estate would make the effort if they had the doorstep service that has been rolled out across most of the borough. I would urge the council to join them onto the system as soon as possible."

The council lost thousands of green bins in two fires in 2004, but the council has said that the current delay in introducing doorstep recycling is that the estate will need two different recycling systems. The houses will have the wheelie bins while the flats will have communal bins and this means the collection rounds will have to be changed.

Local Green Party member Andrea Claire Smith said: "If the introduction of the big, communal bins is the sticking point, then we have thought of a way around using them and will be asking residents in the flats what they think of the idea. Basically, the estate is a mixture of terraced houses and low blocks of flats. Each block of flats has semi-enclosed areas adjoining each block providing bin storage for six flats. Recycling bins could be situated outside these areas - three on each side and padlocked to the wall with the recycling collectors holding the key.

"However, whatever the details of the system, we think the council should match the residents’ enthusiasm with action and give them a doorstep service ASAP."

ENDS