Residents of Wells will soon participate in a pioneering recycling trial, as Somerset extends its successful flexible plastics collection scheme . Following the impressive results from a Frome-based trial, an additional 20,000 properties, will join this environmental initiative by late spring or early summer this year. Flexible plastics have been difficult to recycle. However, Somerset's pilot scheme, which began in May 2023, has shown promising results in efficiently recycling these materials. With 65% of households participating and minimal contamination, the trial in Frome collected around half a tonne of flexible plastic weekly.

The pilot collection scheme accepted plastic bags and wrapping, including carrier bags, bread bags, confectionary wrappers, crisp packets, food wrappings and cling film.

The initial trial in Frome had "yielded impressive results", with 65 per cent of the selected households participating and "very low contamination rates", making it easier for the materials to be recycled. The average household provided around 225g of these materials each week – meaning around half a metric tonne of flexible plastic was collected every cycle (i.e. every week).

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