A REDDITCH Council committee was last night due to look at a number of ways of improving and increasing recycling opportunities in the town.

One of the main ideas being explored by the environmental overview and scrutiny committee was introducing recycling facilities at schools.

The committee was looking into the cost and how it would be implemented effectively.

The council believes schools can play an important part in recycling as the rubbish collected there would be classed as household waste and would therefore count towards Redditch's recycling targets set by the Government.

If pupils are recycling every day at school, the council believes they are also much more likely to recycle at home and to encourage family members to do the same.

Council officers are also looking at what the financial implications would be of introducing mini-recycling centres.

These would be located near the 1,800 properties in Redditch which are classed as "hard to reach" and where it is not practical for residents to place recycling boxes out for collection.

A review of "bring banks" - recycling facilities people travel to in car parks etc - was also due to take place. Small changes are to be made to the location of the bring banks to increase the level of recycling carried out at them.

The council is also keen to publicise the range of materials, such as plastic, shoes, CDs etc, which can be bought to a bring bank for recycling but cannot be collected through the kerbside service.

Meanwhile, Redditch residents have proved they are certainly not rubbish when it comes to recycling after beating the target set by the Government for 2003/04.

The target set for recycling and composting for the year was 10 per cent but recent figures released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs revealed Redditch had beaten this by one per cent.

The figure showed a three per cent increase from what residents achieved in 2002/03.