Recycle Week is taking place from 22 to 28 September, and there’s loads of things you can do to get involved.
Now in its twenty second year, Recycle Week is the nation’s biggest annual celebration of recycling.
Chesterfield Borough Council is proud to support Recycle Week, highlighting the Rescue Me! Recycle campaign.
Organised by WRAP, an environmental action organisation, the campaign theme is ‘Rescue Me! Recycle’ and features playful cartoon characters including Hube the toilet roll tube and Yogi the yoghurt pot among others.
The campaign, organised by WRAP, is all about saving household items from the bin, that could be reused or recycled – giving them an opportunity to be used again.
The cartoon characters, created by WRAP, also give commonly binned items a personality, potentially helping people recognise that more of the things they’ve been putting in their general waste bin can be recycled after all.
Councillor Martin Stone, councillor for climate change, planning and environment, said: “We can all play our part in recycling household items. It is easy to think that what you do at home doesn’t make a difference, but it really does. Making products from recycled items can use less energy than making them from new materials and cutting down on the amount of waste going to landfill means that less methane is produced which has a negative effect on the environment. Recycling is also a great way to reduce pollution and help to protect our local wildlife.
“All of the information you need to know about what can be recycled in Chesterfield can be found on our website.”
Our residents do a great job at recycling, but all that hard work could be wasted if the wrong items are put in the blue bins.
Unfortunately, if the wrong items go into the wrong bins this could spoil a whole lorry load of recycling and be dangerous and unpleasant for the people who sort it at the recycling centre.
Here is a list of what can go into your blue bin:
Yes please:
• all glass bottles and jars
• all plastic bottles (drinks, toiletries, cleaning products)
• food / drink cartons and Tetra Pak® for example, fruit juice cartons
• plastic pots and tubs (yoghurt, margarine, ice cream etc)
• plastic food trays and punnets for example, meat trays, fruit punnets
• chocolate and biscuit tins (plastic and metal)
• drinks cans and food tins
• empty aerosols
• clean aluminium food trays and foil (scrunched)
• card and corrugated cardboard (flattened)
• newspapers, magazines and brochures
• shredded paper
• catalogues and directories (including direct mail)
• envelopes (no need to tear out the window)
• greetings cards and wrapping paper (please remove all tape, ribbons, glitter and plastic)
• Toothpaste tubes (most of the larger manufacturers now sell toothpaste in recyclable tubes)
Please make sure that all recycling is loose (not in bags), and clean - rinsing food containers/jars in your used washing up water should do.
The below items can be recycled but not in your blue bin:
•Plastic bags - many supermarkets are offering soft plastic recycling in-store
•Food waste - this can go into your green wheelie bin if you subscribe to our garden waste service
•Hard plastics such as coat hangers, buckets, toys - these can be taken to the Household Waste Recycling Centre; some supermarkets may recycle coat hangers, check in store
•Metal items such as pans, baking trays - these can be recycled at the Household Waste Recycling Centre which accepts a wide range of metal items
•Textiles such as clothes, bedding - good quality, clean items can be donated to local charity shops, animal rescue centres or placed in textile banks; some accept poorer quality items as long as they are clean as they can be recycled into other products.
•Textiles can also be recycled at the Household Waste Recycling Centre. Wet and dirty items, if they can't be cleaned, should be disposed of in your black wheelie bin.
Find out more about recycling in Chesterfield here: www.chesterfield.gov.uk/bins-and-recycling/household-wheelie-bins/blue-bin-recyclable-waste
Learn more about Recycle Week, visit: www.recyclenow.com/RecycleWeek
