A new PlastiCity Pledge has been announced to continue the recycling initiative across the City and organisations in Southend are invited to join. The PlastiCity pledge is designed to easily and quickly guide organisations to become more sustainable, fit for future regulation, and to increase plastic recycling in Southend’s schools and businesses. As part of the PlastiCity Project we need to demonstrate the creation of facilities for plastic recycling and promotion of circular economy. As such Southend-on-Sea City Council are purchasing 500 recycling boxes from a company that will also collect these boxes when full, recycle the plastic and provide a report on the collections in Southend at the end of the trial period – the report will contain details on what was collected, from which organisation, weights collected, and how it was processed and recycled to showcase the plastic value chain. The plastic recycling boxes will be issued to schools and businesses that sign up to the PlastiCity Pledge (5 boxes per organisation). We have chosen the 90L box which is most appropriate based on space available at the schools we have worked with. Cllr Carole Mulroney, cabinet member for environment, culture and tourism, said: “It was so encouraging to see lots of businesses signing up to our PlastiCity Pledge and I urge other businesses and schools across Southend to do the same and prove our City takes plastic waste seriously and is committed to making lasting change.”