Have you ever noticed those small silver laughing gas canisters on roads and pavements across Tower Hamlets? Nathalie got fed up with seeing them everywhere and started picking them up to tidy up our area. In January she picked up over 300 of them, weighing over 9kg in total!
The council is apparently cracking down on shops which sell these in Tower Hamlets. However, you can still find empty canisters everywhere! Areas around traffic lights are particular hotspots for them. You can also find them in parks, drains, areas of grass and our canals. They not only look untidy, but they also get rusty and let chemicals out into the natural environment. Not a laughing matter!
Nathalie wanted to do the right thing and recycle them. The canisters are made of steel, so can’t be recycled in the council’s normal household recycling (which accepts aluminium). They are also not accepted by the Council’s recycling centre on Yabsley Street near Blackwall. Instead, Nathalie took them to a scrap metal dealer to be cleaned and recycled.