Council asks people to 'keep hold of household waste' while recycling site's closed
Scottish Borders Council is calling on people to avoid clear outs and think about ways of reusing waste, in an effort to prevent fly tipping and backyard bonfires.
Many councils, including in the Borders, have shut waste recycling centres during the coronavirus crisis to concentrate on kerbside collections.
Ross Sharp-Dent, Waste Manager from Scottish Borders Council, said: " We understand the frustrations of the site being closed but unfortunately essential travel, coming to a recycling centre doesn't fall within that bracket.
"We've been really lucky in the Borders through the support of our front-line staff, and support from other services that have been trained up to support us as well we've managed to keep our roadside services and food waste services all fully running which is an amazing outcome really given the situation.
He continues: "Bottle banks are still available, it's not without its challenges, a larger amount of glass being presented so our normal frequencies aren't coping. Bare with us, if the banks are full leave it to another time to get rid of their glass.
"We would condone any sort of action of fly-tipping across the Borders we'd like to keep the environment as beautiful as it was before this outbreak."
Already putting many of those tips into practice is Jennie Gibson, member of the group plastic free Borders. She says we should be keeping up good recycling habits, even during these difficult times.
"We've been using milk cartons and orange juice cartons, cutting the bottoms off and using them for seedlings and for plants so instead of needing to buy plastic plant plots we use them in the garden.
"We are conscious of what we buy in so we try and re-use everything we can or compost everything we can so we're not putting too much in the recycling bin."