Published Tuesday 5 July 2022 at 14:53
Have you heard about our trial with recycling organisation TerraCycle, allowing our residents to recycle items usually headed for the burgundy waste bin?
The trial will last until mid-November and will let residents take new types of waste to the Blackburn and Darwen HWRC’s for the first time ever to be recycled.
Biscuit wrappers, Pringles tubes, plastic toothbrushes and coffee bags are included in the items that can be dropped off during the trial period.
These items are not usually included in Council kerbside recycling collections across the UK, as they’re made up of complex material that make the recycling process more difficult and costly.
By partnering with TerraCycle for this trial, we’ve got the chance to reduce waste across our borough and help save the planet too!
Residents are encouraged to take part by requesting a label for the waste category they want to recycle via the RecycleBwD website: www.recyclebwd.org/terracycle.
The items eligible to be recycled are:
- All Pringles® tubes. Note: the lids can be recycled kerbside.
- All brands of biscuit, cracker and cake wrappers. Note: chocolate bar wrappers and biscuit trays are not accepted.
- All brands of flexible coffee packaging. Note: ground coffee, individual coffee bags and capsules are not accepted.
- All brands of manual toothbrushes, dental floss containers, electric flosser nozzles, flossing sticks and interdental brushes. Note: toothpaste tubes, battery operated toothbrushes and dental floss are not accepted
So, how does it work?
STEP 1: Collect the relevant product packaging at home.
STEP 2: Request free recycling labels using the form at www.recyclebwd.org/terracycle.
STEP 3: Stick your label to any plastic bag of your choice (preferably a clear one, but any will do).
STEP 4: Drop off the full plastic bag at your local Household Waste Recycling Centre.
Be sure to collect categories of items separately. For example, Pringles tubes should not be mixed with coffee packaging.
It’s as simple as that!
Cllr Jim Smith, Blackburn with Darwen Council’s Executive Member for Environment, said:
“We’re delighted to be partnering with TerraCycle and offering our residents the option to recycle even more items.
“Being chosen as a partner for this trial is a fantastic opportunity and we encourage each and every one of our residents to get involved – it’s really easy to take part.
“Boosting recycling rates, reducing food waste and lowering contamination are key priorities for us over the next year and beyond. Encouraging this sort of behavior is really important for Blackburn with Darwen and the entire planet, and the TerraCycle partnership is another chance for us to do this.
“I really look forward to seeing the outcomes of the trial.”
TerraCycle partners with brands and third party recyclers to fund and carry out the recycling process for this type of waste. Pringles, Philips, Taylors of Harrogate and pladis (the company behind McVitie’s and Jacob’s) are the brands participating in the council trial.
The waste will be recycled by shredding, cleaning and turning into plastic pellets, which can then be used by manufacturers to create new plastic products such as outdoor equipment – reducing the need to extract new resources from the planet.
Julien Tremblin, General Manager, TerraCycle Europe said:
“Darwen is the home of TerraCycle’s Materials Recovery Facility, so we already know the area and know how invested many of the residents are in sustainability. This made it an ideal location for this exciting pilot project.
“All our existing recycling solutions are designed to make recycling hard-to-recycle waste straightforward and accessible for everyone.
“We hope our trial with Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council will take these principles a step further by establishing a centralised and already well-used location for residents to drop off multiple waste streams to be recycled.
“We are excited to see how much of these new types of waste local residents will recycle via the HWRC sites.”
This trial is one of two trials with local authorities in partnership with TerraCycle to recycle hard-to-recycle items at HWRCs, the other is with Ealing Council.
For more information about what can be recycled through the scheme, or to get involved and drop your waste off for recycling, head to www.recyclebwd.org/terracycle.
TerraCycle and the brands taking part in the trial already run national recycling programmes which allow consumers to collect and recycle their waste for free by signing up as a collector or by finding their nearest drop-off location. To find out more visit: https://www.terracycle.com/en-GB/brigades#.