Eight tonnes of goods gathered at recycling event

Eight tonnes of material- chiefly old electrical products - were collected at an organised recycling event in Blessington.

The collection , the first of its kind in11 years, was organised by the Blessington Allotments Campaign at McGreals primary care centre in the town and was hosted by WEEE Ireland. 

Residents from all over west Wicklow dropped off electrical, battery and lighting waste to the collection point.

The items included old washing machines, laptops, cables, air fryers, hair dryers, farm batteries and more were among the items dropped off for recycling on the day. 

The BAC had heard from residents in the local area who didn’t have access to a local recycling point for WEEE waste, and took direct action to support local communities. 

“We contacted WEEE Ireland earlier this year to request a free electrical collection day for Blessington and continued to work with them to secure a location and promote the event locally along with Wicklow County Council” said Dónal McCormack, chairperson of the BAC. 

He added: “Recycling this waste directly helps the environment by reusing precious resources that are already in electrical components.” 

“A huge thanks to all at WEEE Ireland who made the collection day so smooth, Wicklow County Council for supporting this project, and to McGreals for the use of their premises for this project.” 

The Blessington Allotments Campaign is an environmental advocacy group, set up in 2018 to campaign for the provision of community growing spaces in the Blessington area. 

The group recently organised hugely successful local seed and plant swaps in Blessington Library, worked with Wicklow councillors to pass the first ever motion on allotments and community gardens at Wicklow County Council, and in 2023 won a national Tidy Towns award for their “Edible Blessington” project, which gave a strawberry plant to every primary school student in Blessington. 

Donal McCormack and Deirdre McCormack

“All of us have a role to play to ensure that we reduce, reuse and recycle as much as we can. Our hope is that by showing the enthusiasm for greener initiatives locally, the support for our campaign for allotments for the Blessington community will continue to grow”, Mr McCormack said.