Roker & Seaburn beaches have been equipped with new recycling stations.
A new initiative has been launched to help keep the city’s beaches free of plastic bottles and other rigid plastics. Sunderland City Council have teamed up with global recycle leader TerraCycle with an aim to reduce littering on Roker & Seaburn beaches. The beaches have now been equipped with six recycling stations located at:
- beach access ramp near the Roker Park entrance on Marine Walk
- roundabout next to Bellerby’s Amusements on Marine Walk
- promenade at Harbour Beach – opposite Sue’s Café
- promenade just north of Little Italy
- promenade below the Fat Buddha
With help from other beach clean-up organisations, Terracycle collected over 60,000 kilos of beach plastic around the world in 2017. Once collected, each piece of plastic waste is separated by type and cleaned. The waste is then melted into hard plastic that can be remoulded to make new recycled products.
What you can recycle:
‘Beach’ plastics are defined as any rigid plastics found along any shoreline. An easy way to identify rigid is anything that you can’t tie in a knot. For example a plastic bag is NOT a rigid plastic, whereas a plastic bottle IS a rigid plastic. The picture above shows accepted rigid plastics which are commonly found on beaches
What you can’t recycle:
- Soft or flexible plastics like nylon rope, fishing nets, and plastic bags are not accepted.
- Tires, metal pieces, rope, or similar items will not be accepted.
- Refrain from allowing beach material such as seaweed, barnacles, sea life, shells and sand to get mixed into the recycling bins.
- Items should be reasonably clean and dry, but extensive cleaning is not required. A small amount of residual organic matter is acceptable.
