Ricky Gervais says he's 'honoured' to have a Reading waste truck named after him!
Ricky - who was born in east Reading - shared the news with his 15 million followers on twitter
Reading-born comedian Ricky Gervais has tweeted to say he's honoured that a waste truck in the town has been named after him.
The food waste collection truck will be called 'Ricky Gerwaste' after it won a public competition to name of the vehicles.
The comedian told his 15 million followers 'is there any greater honour than to have your hometown naming a garbage truck after you?'
Adrian Jack from Caversham, who submitted the winning entry Ricky Gerwaste said:
“I was looking for a pun on Ricky’s name because he is local. I saw the post tweeted before I’d been told I’d won, and it was really cool to see other celebrities liking the post. We recycle all our food waste so it was exciting to win”.
Aside from that one truck naming open to adult residents, Reading’s schoolchildren were given the honour of naming the other five food waste trucks, which have now had the names printed on them.
Collecting over 2kg of food waste per participating household around the borough we now have:
Waster Taster (suggested by Beau from Churchend Primary School)
Hungry Hippo (suggested by Lily Cozens from Thameside Primary School)
Trashosaurus (suggested by Brock Briese from Alfred Sutton Primary School)
The Bindalorian (suggested by Harriet Mallett-Plummer from St Joseph’s College)
Bin Truck McBinFace (suggested by Holly Curtayne from Highdown Secondary School)
And of course Ricky Gerwaste
Cllr Karen Rowland, Lead Member for Environmental Services and Community Safety, said:
“We’re delighted that our trucks, which do such a sterling job each week of saving residents’ food waste from going to landfill, have now got names to give them some personality. I’m pleased Ricky Gervais is excited by the honour of having a truck named after him – we’ll happily show him his truck in person if he’d like to come home for a visit.
“It was great to meet Adrian Jack and his family who invented the catchy name. Ricky’s tweet certainly helped give our valuable food waste recycling programme the spike of attention that it deserves, as our residents are doing a sterling job in getting on board with the programme, but maybe he’s garnered a few more converts to our efforts with food recycling. Thanks for the attention, Ricky!
“Importantly, the naming competition has helped raise awareness about the importance of food waste recycling amongst younger people who will hopefully get more involved with the scheme going forward.
“Keep an eye out for the trucks and see how long it takes to spot all six – never mind Pokemon Go, try Reading Food Waste Truck Bingo!”