TWO Salisbury residents who set up Recycle for Wiltshire Air Ambulance have raised more than £80,000.

Sam Peters and Lesa Snook collect those ‘hard to recycle’ items and send them to the world leader in recycling – TerraCycle. For each item donated, a monetary award is sent to the charity of choice.

More than £81,000 has now been raised for Wiltshire Air Ambulance.

Sam said: “We set up Recycle for Wiltshire Air ambulance back in 2016 after we discovered the free programs offered by TerraCycle to recycle a whole host of items which the local council collections can’t accept."

In Salisbury, residents can take pens, highlighters, toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes, cheese packaging and Baylis and Harding pumps and caps to the Phoenix Emporium which is open seven days a week.

Sam added: “The Phoenix Emporium is our main one stop drop point recycling hub in Salisbury, but we decided to go one step further and set up a network of drop off locations across Wiltshire where anyone can drop off their hard to recycle materials.

“We’d love to have more volunteers onboard so more people can recycle with us without travelling too far. Not only are we doing our bit for the planet, we are raising vital funds for our local air ambulance, it’s a win-win.”

Lesa said: “So far, the Wiltshire community has helped us raise more than £81,000 for Wiltshire Air Ambulance. This is a phenomenal amount, and we are so grateful to everyone who has helped.

“This charity does hugely important work and keeping it operational costs around £11,000 per day so the money we raise makes a real impact.” 

People across Wiltshire are encouraged to bring these items to the drop off point so to avoid them being incinerated or ending up in landfill.

Items collected are recycled by shredding or cleaning and are turned into pellet format so they can be used to create new plastic products including outdoor furniture.

More information can be found on the website.

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