Recycling changes after an 88% reduction in paper waste

In 2021, it rescued the burgundy bin service and brought it in-house after the collapse of the contractor they used. This helped save 15 jobs and the council immediately looked at ways to streamline and improve the service.

In 2022, it expanded the types of plastic residents could recycle to include flexible plastics – a move which came five years ahead of the government mandate to recycle this type of waste.

The flexible plastics include carrier bags, bubble wrap, confectionery wrappers and the film tops that come on products such as grape and strawberry punnets, and should be placed inside a single plastic carrier bag, tied at the top and placed inside the burgundy bin.

And in 2023, the council has another improvement.

It is asking residents to put their paper waste into the main body of the burgundy bin, rather than segregate it into the caddy or hessian bag.

Since the burgundy bin scheme was launched in 2011, they have seen an 88 per cent reduction in paper waste presented in caddies or hessian bags as more people turn to digital ways of communicating or finding out their news, rather than using paper.This means that as they use a split body vehicle – 65 per cent main recycling, 35 per cent paper recycling – the vehicle capacity is being underutilised. However, trials using single compartment vehicles showed greater volumes and tonnage could be collected.

Coun Deborah Watson, council cabinet member for environment and Independent member for Tibshelf, said, “The introduction of flexible plastics recycling last year was a huge success and now we are making this further improvement by enabling residents to put all their recycling into one bin rather than segregating it. This will help us not only increase vehicle capacity, but also reduce the number of times we have to empty it, meaning greater efficiency.

“We are constantly looking at ways to improve our recycling service and in the space of two-years we have made it more efficient, saved jobs and have introduced new recycling streams.

“When you consider other authorities do not even offer the opportunity to recycle glass through their schemes we are well ahead of the game, but we will continue to look at ways of improving the service.”

To assure residents, all waste collected in burgundy bins continues to be sent to a local Material Recovery Facility, which is able to sort all recyclable waste types and provide high quality material for reproduction. To find out more about recycling, visit bolsover.gov.uk/recycling