THORNBURY'S Tesco store has become one of the first in the country to implement a new recycling initiative for coffee packaging, which will benefit local Brownie groups.

Shoppers are being encouraged to drop off all brands of coffee packaging waste to a collection box now situated at the store in Midland Way.

The Coffee Packaging Brigade aims to save coffee packaging waste from landfill while raising funds to support Thornbury and surrounding area Brownies. Each unit of coffee packaging waste collected by the local community Kenco will be worth 2 pence.

Coffee giant Kenco partnered with recycling experts TerraCycle to set up the Coffee Packaging Brigade and appealed for people across the UK to find suitable locations in their communities that were willing to house a coffee packaging collection box.

Lisa Phillips, assistant leader for the 1st Thornbury Brownies, arranged for the Tesco store in Midland Way to house a collection box for the community.

Local people are now able to drop their waste coffee refill bags, coffee bean bags, single serving coffee sachets and coffee jar lids off to the public access collection box at the Thornbury Tesco store between the hours of 8am to 12 midnight Monday to Saturday and 10am to 4pm on Sunday.

Lisa, who will administrate the collections for the Thornbury Coffee Packaging Brigade, said: “Two TerraCycle points are earned for the weight of each coffee packaging unit that is returned, with each point being redeemable for a one pence contribution.

“The money raised will be used to help fund the Brownie centenary birthday celebrations. I encourage local people to drop off all their coffee packaging waste back to the collection box at the Thornbury Tesco store and tell all their friends and family to do the same. The aim is to not only save as much coffee packaging waste from landfill as possible but also to raise as much as possible for the Brownies.”

The Coffee Packaging Brigade looks to extend the lifecycle of everyday coffee packaging waste whilst reducing landfill proliferation. At the same time there is a knock on effect of slowing the need to extract new resources from the planet. The coffee packaging waste will be recycled into generic plastic products such as park benches, watering cans and waste bins.

Emily Woodward-Smith, assistant brand manager for Kenco, said: “We encourage the people of Thornbury to really get behind the scheme to not only make a difference to the local environment but also to raise money for local charities.”