Did you know that if you live in Central Bedfordshire you can’t put glass in your kerbside recycling? Read on to find out how we turned this into an opportunity to connect!
In Bedfordshire, MacIntyre has a children's home called Hillside. The young people who live there wanted see if there was anything they could do to help their neighbours. At Christmas time last year, the young people thought it would be neighbourly to send Christmas chocolates and cards, and delivered them, and this felt really nice. We started to think about what we are good at and the skills we have to see if we could offer anything else.
Abdul loves helping with the recycling. It’s really important to him that everything has a place and there’s a place for everything. He’s keen during cooking that everything is cleaned or rinsed properly and put in the right place. He knows that if you put things in the wrong bin they won’t be emptied!
Abdul enjoys collecting the glass recycling and taking it to the local bottle bank recycling at the Co-Op, often with Support Worker Karen. It's noisy dropping the bottles in, but very satisfying.
We wondered if this could be something our neighbours would appreciate help with. We supported Abdul to write a letter to the neighbours offering to collect their recycling. He got some strong boxes and labelled them as glass recycling. He puts these next to the neighbours' bins. Now Abdul goes over to the neighbour’s house each week, swaps the full box for an empty one, and takes the full one to the bottle bank.
What Abdul says about the recycling:
Happy, good, take to Co-Op, good helping
Manager Duane Anstey says:
Abdul loves nothing more than helping in the kitchen, keeping things clean and tidy and everything in its place. This is one way we are trying to be good neighbours and being visible in our local community!
