Whittlesea has introduced a new mascot to educate and encourage locals to recycle their glass waste.
A call out to local schools to help name the mascot was made and Angel from Merriang Special Development School came up with the winning name of Gilbert.
Whittlesea’s chair administrator Lydia Wilson said it was a challenge to choose a winning name.
“It was a difficult task picking a name out of the many wonderful suggestions received, but we think Gilbert is a fitting name for our new mascot,” she said.
“Gilbert will join Reggie the Recycler and Connie the Composter as our recycling mascots, and you are sure to see them as we continue to share information about waste and recycling across the [municipality].”
Since starting the glass recycling collections in mid-October council has collected almost 340,000 kilograms of glass bottles and jars.
Ms Wilson said it was wonderful to see the community embrace the new service so quickly.
“We are one of the first metropolitan councils to have rolled out a separate glass recycling bin for residents and to have collected so much in the first few weeks shows what a great job our community have done to sort and separate their recycling,” she said.
“All of the glass collected is taken to Visy Recycling where it is processed and turned into new glass bottles and jars.”
