Selby College students lead the way in tackling plastic waste with Drax and Selby Council scheme

Selby College students and staff are leading the way in tackling plastic waste, one bottle at a time, with a new scheme from Selby Council and Drax Group.

The ‘bottle exchange’ is allowing Selby students and residents to swap their single use plastic bottles for a free reusable water bottle.

The scheme kicked off at Selby College with over 200 bottles being exchanged at the first session and will be rolled out at Selby High School this week, along with other locations across the District, which are open to residents to use.

Approximately 13 billion plastic bottles are used each year in the UK, but only 7.5 billion are recycled.

Selby District Councillor and Executive member Chris Pearson said: “Reusable water bottles are convenient and environmentally friendly - and using one is cheaper than constantly buying single use water bottles. This initiative supports our existing network of free water bottle refill points which is supported by lots of local businesses in the Selby district.”

Drax Group Head of Sustainable Business, Vicky Bullivant, added: “Too many of the plastic bottles used in the UK go to landfill – more than five billion each year, and they take around 450 years to biodegrade. We want to help change that and are proud to be part of a scheme which will help to reduce single use plastics in Selby.

“Reusable water bottles are an easy and convenient way to stay hydrated on the go, and also can replace single use plastic bottles.”

Local residents can get involved too, with water bottle exchanges available at a number of locations around the area, including:

The Summit Indoor Adventure, Scott Road, Selby

Regen Centre, Riccall

Tadcaster Town Council

Tadcaster Library

Tadcaster Pool

Barlby Library and Community Hub

Selby Library, Micklegate, Selby

SDC Contact Centre, Market Cross, Selby

All single use water bottles exchanged as part of the project will be recycled.