Changes to waste services

Like many organisations, the council is facing an unprecedented challenge in continuing to deliver waste services while responding to the coronavirus. It is inevitable that sickness, isolation measures and increased childcare responsibilities will reduce the number of staff available at different times.

We are all responding to this challenge together and we would ask you to think carefully about buying only what you need and making creative choices with cooking and storage. This will help keep food waste to a minimum. Love Food Hate Waste has some tips on proper food storage and recipes that we hope will be useful.

Please do not dump bulky items such as mattresses and furniture in the street as this is putting a strain on resources.

You can now report a missed bin collection, street cleaning and a bulky waste collection.

Reuse and Recycling Centre (RRC)

The Reuse and Recycling Centre (RRC) in Yabsley Street is open with new safety measures in place.

Only visit the RRC if your waste or recycling cannot be stored at home or disposed off safely by other means. If you can temporarily store your waste or recycling in a way that does not pose a risk to your or others' safety or human health, then you must do so.

• Opening hours:
  • Monday to Friday, 8am – 8pm
  • Saturday and Sunday 9am – 6pm and 
  • Bank Holidays from 9am – 4.30pm.

Please do not arrive before the site opens.

• Access to the RRC will only be from Baffin Way and then Blackwall Way.

Please visit the Reuse and Recycling Centre (RRC) website for a list of RRC restrictions and safety measures before visiting the site.

If you have symptoms of coronavirus, personal waste (such as used tissues) and disposable cleaning cloths can be stored securely within disposable rubbish bags.

These bags should be placed into another bag, tied securely and kept separate from other waste. This should be put aside for at least 72 hours before being put in your usual external household waste bin. Other household waste can be disposed of as normal.

In order to help reduce risk of infection to our waste collection team, all residual waste must be stored in refuse sacks that have been tied up.

Any clinical waste, such as plastic dialysis tubes, must not be placed in recycling bins.

For further advice, visit Public Health England.

Recycling sacks

As the Ideas Stores are now closed we are in the process of delivering recycling sacks to residents who need them. We have started delivering to houses in the borough and are working to complete deliveries as quickly as possible. We are asking residents to bear with us as crews work hard to deliver them.

A reminder that residents in blocks of flats with communal recycling bins, or residents who have purple wheeled bins, do not need to use council issued plastic recycling sacks. Recycling can be placed into bins loose or in a clear carrier bag. Black sacks must not be used for these purposes. Residents can use cardboard boxes or ‘bags for life’ for storing recycling in their homes and emptying recycling into their communal purple bins – these boxes or bags can then be re-used.