Theirs for the asking but still thieves had to break in

By Natalie Harrison

Discarded bicycles and other items may be taken from the Longue Hougue waste recycling depot for free.

ANYTHING in the Aladdin’s cave of a junkyard was theirs for the asking. But Guernsey’s dumbest thieves had to break in instead.

Now police are looking for whoever pushed over a fence around Public Services’ Longue Hougue waste recycling depot, breaking one of the 12ft-by-8ft sections. The incident – between 5pm on Monday 24 and 6.45am on Wednesday 26 March – prompted the depot supervisor to remind people that they can take anything from the site free of charge.

But he did ask for them to call during opening hours – 7.30am to 4pm on weekdays, except Tuesdays, and 8am and 5pm at weekends. The new temporary facility and a scheme finding work for the unemployed have kept hundreds of tonnes out of landfill.

The depot has already seen nearly 3,000 visits and, in addition to nearly 100 tonnes of mixed materials that have gone on to be recycled, hundreds of items have also been given a new lease of life.

The site accepts 25 different types of ‘waste’, from computer equipment and domestic appliances to ceramic garden pots and timber.

The department said that the initiative took less than £10,000 to set up, with costs kept to a minimum by using staff from the Community and Environmental Projects Scheme – run by Social Security – thus providing work for islanders currently on unemployment benefit.

States Works general manager Nigel Dorey said that the CEPS workers played an important role, from helping the public to unload to stripping down items such as computers and washing machines to enable components with a higher scrap value to be recycled separately.

‘The number of tasks they now carry out has also increased,’ said Mr Dorey.

‘For instance, as well as stripping down personal computers, pulling out hard drives and memory, they have been repairing bikes by reusing various parts from those that have been scrapped to make working ones. More than 40 of these have already been picked up by the public.’