The city’s legendary purple bins are due to appear at Last Day of Summer!
“Purple Patch” is an interactive space where attendees can relax and charge their phones for free while learning about recycling across Liverpool.
Liverpool City Council commissioned local art company social enterprise Make CIC to create the space as part of a campaign to help tackle the city’s low recycling rates.
Make CIC has brought together local artists and makers to create a striking and sustainable display. Inside, visitors will find innovative charging points and a DJ deck crafted from repurposed purple bins, alongside seating made from reclaimed tyres and artwork on the walls fashioned entirely from residents’ recycled materials.
While inside, festival goers can take part in interactive quizzes to find out what changes they can make at home to improve recycling, live in a sustainable way, and save money in the long run.
Almost two thirds of rubbish thrown away in the city’s purple bins could be recycled, with 18.9 per cent belonging in the blue bin.
These figures include the likes of textiles and old clothes, which could be donated, cans and plastic bottles, which can be recycled, and food waste which can be composted.
The council sends approximately 135,000 tonnes of waste to incineration each year, with waste collection and disposal making up 9 per cent of the city’s CO2 emissions.
The Council is focusing on education and engagement around reducing, reusing and recycling rubbish as part of its new Recycling and Waste Strategy, which was introduced earlier this year.
The Strategy highlights that important changes to the production and collection of rubbish can only take place if organisations, businesses and residents work together. This includes making sure that all rubbish goes into the correct bin, as well as increasing the number of materials that can be recycled in the region with the introduction of food waste recycling by next April.
In a bid to create a circular economy, where items are reused over again instead of being thrown away, people are being encouraged to reduce the amount of rubbish they produce in the first place and find new ways to use old items, as demonstrated in the “Purple Patch”.