A SUCCESSFUL knife amnesty campaign has been relaunched in a bid to see as many blades binned as possible.

So far in 2012 people have deposited 1,640 knives in bins across Suffolk.

Following the success of the initial year-long amnesty, which saw 6,125 knives deposited anonymously in four permanent and two mobile bins in 2011, four Bin a Blade secure boxes have remained outside Ipswich, Lowestoft, Bury St Edmunds and Mildenhall Police Stations.

The bins are owned by Suffolk’s Community Safety Partnerships, which has allowed them to remain in place and be repainted.

Chief Constable Simon Ash, teenage anti-knife campaigner Holly Watson and BBC Suffolk’s Mark Murphy officially relaunched the campaign to promote the bright yellow bins.

Holly said: “I’m really pleased with how the bins look. Anyone going to one of the four police stations can’t miss them and I hope they will make people think more about binning their blades and not carrying a knife in the first place.”

Mr Ash said: “Whilst there continues to be no significant problem with knife crime in Suffolk, we still want to raise awareness of the consequences of carrying a knife.

“We are now focusing on delivering this message to young people through a theatre production in the new year.”

So far this year people in Ipswich have dumped 833 blades while there have been 262 binned in Bury St Edmunds.

There have been 96 blades deposited in Mildenhall and 449 in Lowestoft.