Tub2Pub campaign: Newbury and Thatcham sustainable living champions urge you to recycle Heroes, Celebrations and biscuit tubs for charity in conjunction with Greene King, CO-cre8 and DCW Polymers

The Bear, Hungerford, is one of many Greene King pubs across the country taking in empty plastic tubs to turn them into cash for charity.

Throughout this month, the Greene King pub chain is working with recycling specialist Co-cre8 and DCW Polymers to turn hard-to-recycle plastic tubs into cash for Macmillan Cancer Support – and three ladies from Thatcham, Newbury and Kintbury are happy to be helping to collect them.

The nationwide initiative follows a successful scheme carried out last year by DCW Polymers, which raised more than a thousand pounds for local charities.

The Bear Hotel in Hungerford is participating in the scheme that runs until January 31 and anyone living in the Hungerford area or passing through can drop off their clean tubs to reception.

In addition local residents Mrs Kirby, Melinda Varju and Paula Smalley will also accept clean tubs to pass on to The Bear.

Clean tubs can be dropped to Mrs Kirby at Thatcham Refillable, 60 Northfield Road, Thatcham, RG18 3ES or can be passed on to her at the Sustainable Living Market at Thatcham Catholic Hall, 10am-12.30pm on Saturday, January 22; at the SustainHuble Eco Market, Wash Common, Francis de Sales Parish Hall, 11am-2pm, on Thursday, January 27; or at Woolton Village Market, Woolton Hill, 10.30am-1pm, on Saturday, January 29.

Thatcham Refillable will also be holding a pop-up refill this Saturday, January 8, between 10am and 12noon, when tubs can also be left.

Tubs can be left at Melinda Varju’s existing TerraCycle collection point at 2 White Lodge Cottage, Bath Road, Speen, Newbury, RG14 1QT.

Residents in Kintbury can arrange to leave tubs with Paula Smalley direct.

Mrs Kirby said: "Tubs can be recycled at West Berkshire recycling green bins, but not all of them fit and this initiative also raises money for charity.

"Paula, Melinda and I are happy to be 'drop off points' and then we will take the tubs to the collection point at The Bear."

She added: "Please make sure the tubs are clean, dry and empty before dropping them off."

It is estimated that more than 100 million tubs of chocolates, sweets and biscuits are sold in the UK each year; with Christmas accounting for as much as 40 per cent of all sales.

All the tubs collected are taken to DCW Polymers' plastic reprocessing centre in Exeter, where they will be shredded and granulated for sale to manufacturers, in place of virgin plastic. Each tub equates to approximately eight pence.

Greene King’s supply chain director Vance Fairman-Smith said: “Earlier this year, we announced we were the first pub company to achieve the Carbon Trust’s Zero Waste to Landfill Standard, and we’re continually looking at how we can tackle waste and help the environment through recycling.

"We’re really excited to be able to offer this recycling facility to our customers, but also to support Macmillan, which needs help more than ever following the huge gap in donations following the Covid 19 crisis.”

Co-cre8’s co-founder Peter Goodwin said: “DCW Polymers successfully tested this scheme last year in Devon, with more than £1,200 raised for charity. Such was the appetite, we are now ready to take it nationwide and, together with the backing of Greene King, we hope turn it into an annual post-Christmas event.”