Residents urged to recycle right

28 June 2019, 12:04 | Updated: 28 June 2019, 12:12

The message is from Huntingdonshire District Council.

Huntingdonshire District Council is urging residents to continue to separate their waste and 'recycle right' this summer in a bid to reduce the amount of waste.

Despite 64% of waste collected in May being diverted from landfill (recycled or composted), 227 recycling bins were not collected because they contained contaminated waste, which costs Huntingdonshire residents on average £10,000 a month to remove and dispose of incorrect items such as food, nappies and black bags, put into the blue bins.

Incorrect items placed in recycling bins reduce the quality of the acceptable recycling at our plant in Waterbeach and can cause large quantities of recycling to be rejected, therefore not recycled.

As a reminder:
- Wet wipes, nappies and sanitary waste should be placed into your grey bin
- Do not use black bags for recycling. Place recycling in your bin clean, dry and loose
- Empty all liquids from bottles and place tops and lids back on before putting into your blue bin
- Remove any food and rinse packaging to remove food residues before placing into your blue bin

Councillor Marge Beuttell, Executive Councillor for Operations and Regulation, said: "After spending the day with our refuse crews on a recycling shift, I learnt first-hand how much time and effort our crews put into quality checking every recycling bin to minimise the amount of contaminated waste that makes it to our Material Recycling Facility (MRF). 

"The MRF lost 31 hours of runtime in May, which could have been processing around 600 tonnes or carrying out maintenance tasks to improve performance.

"Recycling right is everyone's responsibility and I encourage residents to remind themselves of the rules this summer and to play their part."