Normally sold to rag merchants, the items have been carefully selected and donated by the managers of the eleven centres run by Hampshire Waste Services, whose head office staff in Otterbourne have also backed the effort with their own donations of food and clothes. A further £165 was given by the Hampshire Waste Social Fund and spent on food.

Co-ordinating the initiative is Becky Bowles of Hampshire Waste Services, who said the response from the recycling centres had been such that over a tonne of materials had quickly been collected and transported to RAF Alcombury, near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. 

Here in a large aircraft hangar, staff from Kwik-Fit are sorting all the materials, including those that have also been donated via their network of tyre and exhaust centres. The gifts are being despatched by air to Kosovo, and in articulated trucks at the rate of seven a week.

NOTE TO EDITORS: The eleven Household Waste Recycling Centres who took part include Aldershot, Andover, Basingstoke, Farnborough, Hartley Wintney, Marchwood, Netley, Efford near Lymington, Paulsgrove Portsmouth, Somerley Ringwood, and Chapel Southampton.

11 June 1999