Argyll and Bute Council is introducing an enhanced recycling service in Cowal from 20 April which will make it easier for you to recycle at the kerbside.

From 20 April blue recycling bins will be able to take plastic bottles/tubs/trays and cans as well as paper and card. The green bin will remain for everything else, apart from glass.

The blue recycling bin will not be suitable or glass . Existing glass recycling facilities (e.g. bottle banks) should continue to be used as normal.

You will now have your green and blue bins emptied on alternate weeks. This means that you will continue to receive a weekly bin uplift - one week you will put out your green bin and the next week your blue bin.

Anyone who does not currently have a blue bin will be issued with one in April, before the new collections begin.

This new service will make it easier for you to recycle at the kerbside, rather than having to go to your local recycling centres.

Hopefully this new service will encourage people to recycle. By recycling more you are helping to save the planet’s natural resources, save energy and reduce the effects of climate change.

You will receive an information pack through your door in March which contains a guide containing more information on the new service and full details of what you can recycle, a new collections calendar and a sticker for the lid of your blue recycling bin to remind you what can and cannot go in it.

Vice Chair of the Bute and Cowal Area Committee, Cowal-based Councillor Alex McNaughton, said of the new service: ‘’We are introducing this enhanced service to encourage recycling in Cowal, in line with other parts of Argyll and Bute. With the blue recycling bins now able to take plastics and cans as well as paper and card it will make it easier for our residents to recycle at their kerbside, rather than having to go to recycling centres.

‘’The main reason for introducing this is to increase the amount that we recycle; much of the waste we produce can be turned into new products rather than going to landfill.

‘’We introduced an enhanced service in the Helensburgh and Lomond area in 2009 and in Mid-Argyll and Lorn in 2014 and it has been very successful. I am confident that residents in Cowal will benefit from this enhanced service and that the change will go smoothly.’’