Sam’s Gala offers a solution for recycling in Dunmanway

A DUNMANWAY supermarket has come to the rescue of fed-up locals who are unable to recycle their paper, cardboard and plastics at the town’s civic amenity site.

Sam’s Gala on Main Street – who were one of the first supermarkets to initiate ‘senior only’ hours in the early days of the Covid-19 lockdown – is kindly offering to take clean and dry cardboard and paper from customers free of charge because the recycling facility is currently suspended at the Dunmanway site.

Speaking to The Southern Star, Colm O’Sullivan, operations manager of Clifford’s & Sons Retail Group, which runs Sam’s Gala,  said he had spoken to several of his customers who were annoyed at the inconvenience of having to travel to either Bandon or Clonakilty to recycle their paper and cardboards.

‘A lot of them had availed of the lockdown to declutter their homes so it has been made all the more difficult now. As we have the facility to compact and bale we decided to offer this service free of charge until a resolution is found to open the recycling facility in Dunmanway again,’ said Colm.

‘We restricted our days to Saturdays and Sundays and 32 people availed of the service on Saturday, while 26 people came on Sunday. All of them were extremely grateful and we’re hoping that more people will avail of the free service when the word gets around.’

People who want to avail of the free service are being asked to simply bring along any recyclables that they have, place them in a trolley and a staff member will take it from there.