Drax : 9 July 2019 - Drax and Selby District Council team up to tackle plastic waste

The 'bottle exchange' is allowing Selby students and residents to swap their single-use plastic bottles for a free reusable water bottle.

The scheme kicked off at Selby College with over 200 bottles being exchanged at the first session and will be rolled out at Selby High School next week, along with other locations across the District, which are open to residents to use.

Approximately 13 billion plastic bottles are used each year in the UK, but only 7.5 billion are recycled.

Selby District Councillor and Executive member Chris Pearson said:

'Reusable water bottles are convenient and environmentally friendly - and using one is cheaper than constantly buying single use water bottles. This initiative supports our existing network of free water bottle refill points which is supported by lots of local businesses in the Selby district.'

Drax Group Head of Sustainable Business, Vicky Bullivant, added:

'Too many of the plastic bottles used in the UK go to landfill - more than five billion each year, and they take around 450 years to biodegrade. We want to help change that and are proud to be part of a scheme which will help to reduce single use plastics in Selby.

'Reusable water bottles are an easy and convenient way to stay hydrated on the go, and also can replace single use plastic bottles.'

Local residents can get involved too, with water bottle exchanges available at a number of locations around the area, including:

• The Summit Indoor Adventure, Scott Road, Selby
• Regen Centre, Riccall
• Tadcaster Town Council
• Tadcaster Library
• Tadcaster Pool
• Barlby Library and Community Hub
• Selby Library, Micklegate, Selby
• SDC Contact Centre, Market Cross, Selby

All single use water bottles exchanged as part of the project will be recycled.

ENDS

Ali Lewis
Drax Group Head of Media & PR
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T: [phone]

Julie Walden
Selby Council Marketing and Communications Officer
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About Drax

Drax Group's ambition is to enable a zero carbon, lower cost energy future. Its 2,600-strong staff operate across three principal areas of activity - electricity generation, electricity sales to business customers and compressed wood pellet production.

Power generation:

Drax owns and operates a portfolio of flexible, low carbon and renewable electricity generation assets across Britain. The assets include the UK's largest power station, based at Selby, North Yorkshire, which supplies six percent of the country's electricity needs.

Having converted two thirds of Drax Power Station to use sustainable biomass instead of coal it has become the UK's biggest renewable power generator and the largest decarbonisation project in Europe.

Its pumped storage, hydro and energy from waste assets in Scotland include Cruachan Power Station - a flexible pumped storage facility within the hollowed-out mountain Ben Cruachan. It also owns and operates four gas power stations in England.

B2B supply:

Drax owns two B2B energy supply businesses:

• Haven Power, based in Ipswich, supplies electricity and energy services to large Industrial and Commercial sector businesses.
• Opus Energy, based in Oxford, Northampton and Cardiff, provides electricity, energy services and gas to small and medium sized (SME) businesses.

Pellet production:

Drax owns and operates three pellet mills in the US South which manufacture compressed wood pellets (biomass) produced from sustainably managed working forests. These pellet mills supply around 20% of the biomass used by Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire to generate flexible, renewable power for the UK's homes and businesses.

For more information visit www.drax.com