London Lite agrees to pay for Westminster recycling bins

Associated Newspapers has reached an agreement with Westminster City Council to pay for 32 London Lite-branded recycling bins to be placed around central London.

The deal comes after the council threatened earlier this year to ban the two London free newspapers, London Lite and News International rival thelondonpaper, if they did not contribute to the cost of clearing up discarded papers each night.

The council – which oversees a large part of Central London, including Victoria and Charing Cross mainline rail stations – said in April that the two free papers, since they launched last August, had created an extra 1,000 tonnes of waste.

Under today’s agreement, Associated will pay for 32 bins around Victoria station and Leicester Square. It is understood that thelondonpaper is about to reach a similar agreement to fund bins elsewhere in the borough.

The Associated director of free newspapers, Steve Auckland, told Press Gazette the agreement had taken “a long time to come”, but the recycling deal would now come into effect within the next two months.

“We spoke to the councils last October and we said there could be issues [with recycling],” Auckland said. “We’re obviously trying to work responsibly – we’re not putting too many copies out, and we want to get our merchandisers off the street by 7.30pm.”