Reduce My Rubbish
What can you do?
MorePutting the right stuff in the right bin is important. The wrong stuff is called contamination and when contaminated loads of recycling are found, it can potentially result in the whole lorry full being sent for disposable instead of recycling.
Norfolk’s recycling material is sorted by hand and baled by machine in a purpose-built factory in Costessey. So it’s really important to keep your recyclables Clean, Dry & Don’t Bag It.
We know that these days everything seems to have at least one recycling symbol on it and that can make it confusing to understand what to put in your recycling bin. Check here to make sure you’re putting the right things in your Norfolk Recycling Bin.
For further information on what all those symbols mean look here.
Unfortunately you cannot recycle these items in your recycling bin:
Contamination isn’t good because it:
In extreme cases contamination causes an entire load of material, that was otherwise fine, to be rejected. The companies we sell our paper and card to send inspectors to check the quality of the material we are sending them. If they find food or a nappy in a bale of paper and card they will not accept any more of our material, until we pass future inspections. Paper and card that would have been going to them has to be sold to another company, which buys it at a lower price.
All this means a loss of income which costs the councils and therefore you, the taxpayer, money. And that money could have been used on other services.