Blue bin

Please use our waste and recycling collection date finder to find out if your property receives a blue bin collection service.

What can I recycle in my blue bin?

Paper

• Paper- Clean and dry
• Newspapers
• Magazines, catalogues and directories
• Junk mail
• Letter and envelopes (including windows)
• Office and shredded paper
• Paperback books - or these can be donated to a charity shop
• Glitter-free, non-metallic wrapping paper

Cardboard

• Large and small cardboard boxes - e.g. detergent boxes, cereal boxes and packaging
• Brown corrugated packaging
• Toilet and kitchen roll tubes
• Glitter free greeting cards

Please remember and remove all polystyrene from boxes and flatten the box before recycling

Trading Standards Advice - Protect your identity

Before you recycle documents which contain your personal information, please remember to shred them.  In particular protect your account numbers, passwords, PINs, signatures,  date of birth and your name and address.

What items can't I put in my blue bin?

• Plastic cans and cartons
• Tissues and napkins
• Padded envelopes
• Kitchen towels
• Cardboard contaminated with food
• Wallpaper
• Nappies
• Polystyrene
• Pizza boxes contaminated with grease
• Electrical items and e-cigarettes (including batteries) 
• Textiles, clothing and shoes

Additional or replacement bins

You can request an additional blue bin or a replacement bin if your blue bin is lost, stolen or damaged.

Request an additional or replacement blue bin

Correct presentation of wheeled bins

Make sure your wheeled bin is put out at the agreed location by 7:30 am on the day of collection, and returned to your bin storage point by the end of the day:

• Do not contaminate your recycling bins
• Do not overfill your bin and ensure that the lid is closed
• Do not put out additional waste or recycling next to your bin as this is not permitted and will not be uplifted. Excess waste and recycling can be taken to your local Recycling Centre.

What do I do if my bin is contaminated?

If your blue bin is tagged as contaminated, remove the incorrect materials and re-present on your next scheduled blue bin day. Any excess recycling can either be taken to your nearest Recycling Centre, or stored and decanted over the next few collections.

If your bin is heavily contaminated or you are unable to remove the incorrect items, householders can call our Customer Service Centre to arrange a chargeable uplift to empty the bin as waste. This uplift costs £6 and can be arranged by calling 01738 476476. Collections usually take place on the same day as your green bin uplift.

FAQs

What is contamination?

Contamination is classed as the wrong material in the wrong bin. Contamination can also be spread if wet or soiled materials are placed in a bin alongside your dry recycling, for example a pizza box contaminated with grease. Small amounts of contamination can be removed during the sorting process, however this comes at an additional cost to the Council.

What happens if we don't address the issue?

If we continue to send heavily contaminated loads to our reprocessor (Smurfitt Kappa), they may reject these before starting the sorting process. If a load is rejected, all the material must be disposed of at our expense. In addition, as stipulated in the contract between the Council and Smurfitt Kappa, loss of income to the reprocessor due to a rejected load must also be compensated.

The penalties from July to December 2023 were estimated at around £50,000 - money which has not been budgeted for.

It is also important that we acknowledge the environmental consequence of disposing of recyclable materials. By landfilling or incinerating good recycling, you take away the chance for that material to be made into something new. Recycling uses significantly less energy than extracting raw materials to make items from scratch and does not deplete the Earth's precious limited resources.

The split of the grey and blue bin in 2023 ensures recycling stays clean and uncontaminated, therefore resulting in a lower chance of a load being rejected and a financial penalty being incurred for either.

Why will this cost the Council more money?

As a Council, we do not own any sorting infrastructure, so we contract this work out. Our existing contractor for the processing/sorting of our blue bin recyclates is Smurfitt Kappa. Within the contract with Smurfitt Kappa, we are allowed a degree of contamination (we know no one is perfect), however when we exceed this threshold the material is too contaminated to be sorted so must be disposed of.

The cost of disposal must be covered by the Council. In addition, it is also stipulated that we must compensate Smurfitt Kappa and Cireco for the loss of income by not having items to sort and sell.