Eight swimming pools in Birmingham have signed up with swimming products recycling scheme Leisure Loop, which aims to address the amount of waste generated by pools that reaches landfill each year.
The leisure centres taking part in this green initiative are Beeches, Cocks Moors Woods, Erdington, Fox Hollies, Ladywood, Northfield, Stechford and Wyndley.
Birmingham Community Leisure Trust, which runs the centres in partnership with Serco Leisure, is teaming up with swimming products company Zoggs to offer a trial of Leisure Loops’ re-cycling boxes. All boxes will be Zoggs-branded to make it easy for customers to identify where to put their old swimming products, such as goggles, flip-flops and floats.
Jack Pyatt, Partnership Manager for the trust said: “This is an important initiative and one I’m sure our customers will be keen to support. We’re determined as an operator to do all we can to reduce our environmental impact and this scheme fits in perfectly with our commitment to Maintain a Fitter Future, a green project we launched at all centres in 2022 to demonstrate more transparency on how we use energy around our facilities.
“I would encourage all customers to look out for the blue Zoggs’ boxes at each of the centres, and to check out our websites for a full list of the items we are collecting. The waste we collect will be recycled and transformed into new products, and it’s worth noting that if every pool in the UK filled just one box, around 55 tonnes of waste would be prevented from reaching landfill.”
Cllr Mariam Khan, Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care added: “Our leisure centres are really popular and we know schemes like this can help residents to do their bit to help reduce waste and improve the environment. Bringing the boxes to our leisure centres will mean that local users can easily recycle their unwanted flip flops, goggles, floats and other swimming equipment.
“The council is doing a great deal of work to minimise waste and increase recycling and I am really pleased to welcome this scheme at our pools in Birmingham.”
Birmingham Community Leisure Trust and its operating partner, Serco Leisure run nine facilities in the city on behalf of Birmingham City Council.
