Hard, rigid plastics were previously accepted for recycling at the county council's Recycling and Household Waste Site however it is now difficult to find a market for recycling hard plastics.

With lots of different symbols on plastic packaging, it can be confusing to understand what can and can’t be recycled. Please refer to our plastic recycling guide below to help you out.

Calendars for 2025 will be available to download from Monday 2 December. From this date, you'll also be able to request calendars in other formats (large print, Braille).

Unless you are on the FlexCollect trial, plastic carrier bags are not accepted for recycling. This is because none of the recycling companies who buy our plastic want to buy plastic bags as they have little or no value and affect the sorting process. Find out how plastic bags cause problems during our recycling process.

Many large supermarkets now have plastic bag recycling points available - ask at your local store. Most supermarkets that do home deliveries will also take away your carrier bags.

We cannot accept "hard" or "rigid" plastics in the red box as the companies that process your plastic cannot recycle it.

Don't forget to squeeze and squash the plastics to get more in your existing containers, and don't forgot to fasten the lid on the red box to prevent recyclables escaping. You can request a lid for your red box(es).

Plastic bags and wrapping collection trial We're trialling recycling collections of plastic bags and wrapping! Visit the Recycle Now website to find out more. Households in selected areas are receiving fortnightly collections of items such as plastic bags, food wrapping, crisp packets, bubble wrap, pet food pouches and more. You can check if your street is on the trial by clicking the links below. If you are on the trial, you can order more purple bags online. FlexCollect trial street list - all rural households (PDF Document, 0.11 Mb) FlexCollect trial street list - E2 Wednesday collections (PDF Document, 0.12 Mb) FlexCollect trial street list - W1 Friday collections (PDF Document, 0.12 Mb)

If you have extra recycling that won't fit in the red box please request another container. Please do not leave recycling in plastic carrier bags or black bin bags for health & safety, and operational reasons.

Unfortunately we are not able to accept large plastic containers over 5 litres in the red box. This is due to the way we process plastics, tins and cans into three separate material streams using magnets and conveyor belts. We separate them as when we sell the recycling it is worth more money. Large bulky plastic items cause blockages, as they are too large to go through the sorting process. This causes the separation machinery to automatically shut down, so the blockage can be cleared, but this loses valuable time.

Food contamination on things like yoghurt pots and rigid food containers means the plastic isn't of a high enough quality for us to get the best prices, from this income we invest back into the services provided by the council.