You will need to follow revised guidance to sort your recycling from now on, in readiness for the next kerbside collection from Stratford sub Castle on Monday 12 June and applicable to all subsequent collections.
The main changes for kerbside recycling collections are:
- Textiles will NO LONGER be collected in the black bin; - Shredded paper will NO LONGER be collected in the blue bin;
- Small rechargeable electrical items WILL be collected.
and at the Household Recycling Centre:
- Paint in less than 1/2 full tins must be hardened before taking for disposal;
- SORT before you bring to the HRC advice.
Full details of all these changes are given below.
SMALL RECHARGEABLE ELECTRICALS
Why these items?
Many rechargeable items contain lithium-ion batteries. These can cause fires if not disposed of properly. Your unwanted electricals contain valuable materials including metals such as gold, copper, steel, and aluminium. These materials can be recovered and become valuable commodities to the UK economy. They are then re-processed into new products – from bicycles to life-saving equipment.
How will we collect these items?
Place your old rechargeable items and their chargers into a carrier bag and put this alongside your blue-lidded bin or bag on your collection day. We have limited space on the collection vehicles, so make sure that no single item is bigger than a shoe box.
Items that will NOT be collected:
Any mains-powered electrical item that needs to be plugged in to work, or individual rechargeable items larger than a shoe box, for example:
• Kettles
• Toasters/sandwich makers
• Air fryers
• Coffee machines
• Microwaves
• Radios / CD players / mains powered smart speakers
• * White goods eg fridges; freezers; fridge-freezers; washing machines & dishwashers; - see * below
• Rechargeable power tools that are bigger than a shoe box
• Portable vacuum cleaners
• Irons
• Mains powered smart assistants (Alexa's, Google assistants)
• Games consoles
• Hairdryer/mains powered curling tongs or hair straighteners
• Smoke Detectors
* Large item reuse and collection can be used for some of these items or they and/or smaller items can be taken to a Recycling Centre. Check the Wiltshire Council website here for details of what you can take to your local centre. (See the note at the bottom of this page about sorting items before you go.),
Successfully recycling textiles collected at the kerbside has become increasingly difficult. They tend to be of a lower quality than those taken to charity shops or textile banks and can become rain damaged when left out for collection. We will therefore no longer be collecting textiles from Monday 05 June.
Textiles and clothing that is not suitable for resale or reuse should be put in your general waste bin for energy recovery. Good quality reusable clothing and textiles can be taken to a charity shop, household recycling centre, or clothing bank. We will make use of the space on the collection vehicles previously used for textiles, for the collection of your unwanted small rechargeable electricals.
From Monday 05 June 2023, we will also no longer collect shredded paper in kerbside recycling bins. You can compost this at home or take it to a household recycling centre. Otherwise, please put it in your general household waste bin, for energy recovery.
What about recycling batteries?
Thank you for recycling your batteries. In the first three months of the new kerbside service, we collected 15 tonnes of your used batteries for recycling. Please ensure that batteries are presented separately to your rechargeable items. When using the kerbside collection service: batteries should be put in a transparent sandwich bag placed on top of your bin; rechargeable items in a supermarket carrier bag placed beside the bin.
THESE CAN GO IN THE BLUE BIN
Empty aerosol cans – please fully empty them first before adding to the bin.
Plastic pots, tubs, and trays – ** BUT NOT BLACK PLASTIC - please always remove the plastic films on the top (pots go in the blue-lidded recycling bins, plastic film in the general waste bin). ** The NOT BLACK PLASTIC comment was added 2 June following clarification from Wiltshire Council.
"Our recycling contractor’s sorting facility at Sands Farm, Calne, separates plastics from the kerbside collections of mixed materials using optical sorting technology. Currently this means that black plastics cannot be detected against the black conveyor belt and so they end up as ‘rejected’ material at the end of the sorting process. We do however accept black plastics at our household recycling centres, where these can be put in the rigid plastics recycling container. The re-processors of this material are able to separate out the black plastics for recycling."
Clean aluminium foil – after use, please give it a quick rinse, scrunch it, and pop it in your blue-lidded bin. Ideally, keep adding foil until it is at least the size of a tennis ball.
Plastic bottles; Drinks cartons; Food and drinks cans; Tin foil trays; Paper; Cardboard.
We do not accept carrier bags or plastic films in the blue-lidded bin.
BLACK BIN:
Metal jar lids – put them back on the jar and put these in your black box with other glass jars and bottles.
RECYCLING CENTRES:
Paint reuse - If you have leftover usable paint and the tin is at least half full, this can be brought to our recycling centres, and set aside for reuse. You can also take away donated paint for free.
Paint disposal – Unusable liquid paint should be hardened before taking it to a recycling centre for disposal. Remove the lid and allow the paint to dry completely or to speed up the process, mix the paint with soil, pet litter, sawdust, or sand. Paint hardening products are also available from DIY stores or online.
SORT BEFORE GOING TO A RECYCLING CENTRE
To help you recycle as much as possible and reduce time on site, please sort and separate your unwanted items into different materials, such as wood, metals, batteries, green waste, and electricals, before visiting the recycling centres. A third of the items put in the general rubbish skips at Wiltshire’s recycling sites could have been recycled, with many items mixed together in black bags.
Check the Wiltshire Council website here for details of what you can recycle at your local site.
Collection dates are on this page . The next collection date for Stratford sub Castle will also be included in 'Upcoming Dates' on the Home Page.