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Pupils at St Malachy’s Primary School, in the Markets area of Belfast, put their recycling know-how to the test in a Waste and Recycling workshop as part of the Eco-Home Initiative. Eco-Home provides householders with all the advice and tips needed to help make the home a more environmentally friendly place and to save money as a result. The programme is operated by the environmental charity Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful, and is supported by Belfast City Council.

Children from P3 to P7 impressed the Eco-Home team with their savvy recycling ways and have enthusiastically taken up the challenge of getting everyone in the family more involved in household recycling too.

Carmel Fyfe, Eco-Schools Manager, Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful said “Eco-Home participants carry out simple actions and make some small changes to their behaviour. These small changes all add up, giving people the chance to do their bit for the environment and save some money too!”

The council pays roughly £900 for each general waste lorry compared to under £100 for a lorry load of recyclable waste. By recycling as much as possible we can reduce the amount of waste going to landfill and will help keep the rates bills down.

Councillor Steven Corr, Chairman of Belfast City Council's Health and Environmental Services Committee, said: “We are very pleased to be supporting the Eco-Home programme. This free initiative will help save ratepayers money within their homes and reduce the amount of waste we are sending to landfill, saving the environment too. Belfast City Council is committed to increasing our recycling rate to 50% and the Eco-Home programme helps householders do their part. If everyone makes small changes we can achieve big things.”

Eco-Home, funded by Belfast City Council’s Zero Waste campaign, which is aimed at increasing the recycling rate within Belfast to at least 50% by 2020, is free to all householders.