Councilor Cadogan Enright proposed a motion to allow bicycles being dumped at Downs civic amenity centers to be refurbished and sold on for charity. Cllr Enright put the motion at Wednesday night’s environment meeting at the request of committee chair, Castlewellan Cllr Eamonn O’Neill.
Cadogan Enright said “Following proposals by myself last year, Council Management have agreed to include an area in Downs new larger civic amenity site to be used to allow people to leave out perfectly reusable goods for others to take away for free as is done in the USA and Australia. Anybody visiting our local civic amenity centers will see dozens of perfectly good bicycles in the skips, furniture, doors and many other reusable items like furniture. As rules currently stand, ratepayers are not allowed to re-use what is in the skips. This makes no sense”.
“My motion on Wednesday night will allow the council to bring forward this date at least for bicycles, and we can move on the other large recyclables when the new civic amenity center comes on-stream.”
Cllr Enright continued “There are other options available. For instance Banbridge District Council opened a ‘restore Centre’ on the Scarva Road in Banbridge in summer 2009. Since opening thousands of items have been purchased including sofa’s, tables, chairs, dressers, washing machines, tumble driers and cookers to name just a selection of items for sale. ‘Restore’ has helped Banbridge get across the principals of full sustainability and created a more positive outlook on reusing second hand goods with the financial benefit this has for the whole of society in these economic tough times.”
Cadogan Enright pointed out that “During a recent visit to the ‘restore’ project I was able to see how young apprentice joiners, electricians and others have been taken hired and are undergoing training from skilled tradesmen to divert perfectly good consumer goods from landfill to resale as tested, top-quality, low-price goods. In the first year it was estimated that the project reduced the Councils ‘carbon-footprint’ by 60 tonnes.“
“I am pleased with moving the bicycle part of this project forward to this year, but look forward to a more substantial project next year to a more substantial project next year and see is no reason why the council could not operate a Banbridge-style scheme with local NGO’s or charitable groups gleaning the benefit.” concluded Cadogan Enright.
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