Lincolnshire residents are being congratulated and encouraged by the Lincolnshire County Council to “keep up the good work” after the county has improved its textile recycling rate dramatically.
Figures from Salvation Army Trading Company Ltd (SATCoL) have shown an impressive 277 tonnes of textiles have been recycled in the past year from the six recycling banks in the county.
In the month of March-April in Lincoln alone, 22.7 tonnes were collected in the bank, and 50.25 tonnes from the Salvation Army’s door-to-door service. This is a 35% improvement on last year’s collection.
This is a great success for Lincolnshire County Council, who have worked with SATCoL since September 2004 and is ranked as one of the top authorities for recycling in the country.
Johanna Walker, Lincolnshire County Council’s waste and recycling officer, said: “We are delighted that Salvation Army Trading Company banks are performing so well and helping to divert material that would otherwise be destined for landfill.
“As a council, we promote the importance of recycling and have put the message out about reusing.
“We would like to get the message out there that people can recycle their clothes. They may not want a particular item of clothing any more, but there are people out there that would appreciate that item.
We’d like to emphasise the fact that they can separate their good quality clothes and put them in the pile to go in the textile bank as opposed to putting them in a landfill bin.”
She added: “We would like to thank residents because they are doing a fantastic job at the moment and we would like to encourage them to keep up the good work.”
It is important for clothes to be recycled. If left in a landfill, clothing biodegrades to form methane, which is a greenhouse gas. If they are recycled however, they provide affordable clothing for others, reduce impact on the environment, create jobs and supports the social work of The Salvation Army.
The six recycling banks for textiles can be found at the Council’s household waste recycling centres in Grantham, Spalding, Lincoln, Skegness, Sleaford and Louth.
The Lincolnite welcomes your views. All comments are reactively-moderated and must obey the house rules. Please stay on topic and be respectful of other readers.
Ahead of the launch of a Jurassic Park-themed event starting this week, Rand Farm Park has welcomed a unique animal to its roster – the Triceragoat!
Starting on August 29 and running until September 4, Jurassic Farm Park will see the popular Rand Farm Park transform into a dinosaur haven for all of the family to enjoy.
There will be a walking, roaring T-Rex called Pete at the farm, as well as his smaller dinosaur friends and other activities to take part in.
Jurassic Fever has well and truly taken over the farm, and on Wednesday morning a new addition was welcomed in the form of what they are calling a Triceragoat.
While the dinosaur stigma suggests it could in fact be a dangerous animal, our feeling is that the only way this Triceragoat could harm you is by cuddling you into oblivion!
Tickets for Jurassic Farm Park cost £13.95 per person and can be bought from the Rand Farm Park website. It will run from 10am to 5pm each day between August 29 and September 4.
The volunteers who run Metheringham Swimming Pool have been overwhelmed with donations and the support of the local community as they prepare to reopen the much-loved facility later this month.
The heated outdoor swimming pool was built by the community and has been part of the village for nearly 50 years, but it was under threat of closure due to thousands of pounds worth of repairs that forced it to shut…fortunately, only temporarily.
The facility is run by a charity called Metheringham Swimming Pool Committee, which is headed by four trustees, and all the staff are volunteers except for the paid lifeguards. It is usually open between May and September.
The first water went back into the pool during the evening of Tuesday, August 16. It will take about a week to fill then a few more days to get it up to temperature ahead of the pool’s reopening on Saturday, August 27.
Thanks to a grant of £2,550 from Heath Farm Energy, managed and operated by Future Biogas, the pool can remain open until the end of September instead of closing at the end of August at the end of the usual season.
The Trustees Terry and Mel Wright, Nikki Duncan and Karen Rymer were all really happy with the result.
Volunteers watch as the water is turned on.
The pool was in the middle of a major refurbishment thanks to a grant from the FCC Communities Foundation, and the works were due to be completed by the end of June. However, the project was halted when a historic crack in the pool was found to be worse than originally realised.
An additional £5,000 in funding was needed to move ahead with repairs, and the local and wider community rallied to exceed this total by raising over £8,500. With grants also awarded the total reached £11,000.
This meant more could funds could be spent on extending the resin flooring all the way to the edges of the site, not just the poolside. The team were also able to buy mosaic tiles to go around the curves in the pool and over the crack to make it completely watertight.
This is how Metheringham Swimming Pool looked before the work.
The crack was repaired by Ashers Swimpool Centre using resin injection.
Jonathon from Struere UK surveys the final work.
Although the original contractor could not commit to finish the rest of the work in time, Ashers Swimpool Centre stepped in to complete the repair.
Chair of the Committee Mel Wright put an appeal on Find my Builder and Jonathon Hamilton from Struere UK, who had just moved his business to the Lincoln area, responded and within a week of him meeting the Trustees the repairs were done and the pool was ready for tiling.
MB Resin Driveways laid the resin flooring around the whole poolside, not just the edges. The team from Struere UK and Alan from AC Ceramic Tiling worked to tile the pool.
The heatwave temporarily stopped the works on the pool before it was completed on August 1. This also meant that the charity was able to claim grant money of just over £36,000 from the FCC Communities Foundation which would have bene lost if they hadn’t got the project back on track.
Alan from AC Ceramics puts the first tile on.
Jonathon Hamilton from Struere UK lends a hand with the tiling.
The resin flooring round the pool is completed by MB Resin Driveways.
Two villagers who originally dug the pool out by hand in the 1970s – Doreen and Bryan Blackband – cut the ribbon to declare the refurbishment work finished.
Karen Rymer, the committee’s secretary who has been a resident of Metheringham for 20 years, said after the initial article appeared in The Lincolnite in June local and wider community businesses rallied round to support them.
She told The Lincolnite: “People overwhelmed us with their generosity, which was more than was needed to repair the crack.
“It’s been like a soap opera, which we joked would be called The Pool. Every time something happened we had another obstacle to overcome.
“Last night (Tuesday) me and Mel were in tears with emotions that we finally had water back in the pool, but the weather had the last laugh as it rained after three weeks of heatwave.
“It’s a community pool and it’s the community in the village and the wider community that rallied round to make sure we would reopen. Now we’re into our usual pre-season preparations, which we would normally be doing in April, and it feels good to be doing that.”
Two villagers who originally dug the pool out by hand in the 1970s – Doreen and Bryan Blackband – cut the ribbon to declare the refurbishment work finished.
Mel & Terry reveal the new sign designed by website coder Steve.
Metheringham Swimming Pool will be open seven days a week between 7am and 10pm until Friday, September 30. Saturday and Sunday, October 1 and 2 will be special doggy swim days.
It is advised to sign up for a pool account before booking, but walk-ins can be accepted. There has been a small increase in price with each session now costing £4 – see more information here.
The pool is also hoping to have swimming lessons available to book, which will be announced on its website and Facebook page. The sessions will be available for bookings once staffing for a lifeguard and further volunteer is confirmed.
Donations to save Metheringham Swimming Pool
Nearly £4,500 raised in personal donations
£1,400 was also donated by local businesses – AGM Landscaping, Emily’s Tanning, Little Jules Aesthetics, Mair Farms, Metheringham Locksmith, Yellow Brick Road Nurseries
Over £500 was received in cash donations, including over £300 which was collected by volunteers Claire and Jan at the Metheringham Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Event
The parents and children from Metheringham Primary School collected over £1,000
People in the village have been described as “amazing” included the charity’s official fundraiser Peter Surch, who raised over £900 from licensed door-to-door collections in Metheringham
In addition, the charity were given grants of £1,500 by Lincoln Minster Round Table and £1,000 from the Arnold Clarke Community Fund