How you can avoid the 'seven recycling bin sins'

While the majority of residents of the borough do recycle, contamination issues with incorrect materials being placed in recycling bins remains a key issue, which has the potential to hit the council’s recycling targets.

The council has worked alongside Waste Awareness Wales to come up with their "seven recycling bin sins" campaign – that is, the seven things that cause the most problems by residents incorrectly placing these items in their recycling bins.

These "bin sins" are:

• Nappies
• Pet poo/contents of litter trays
• Electrical items
• Textiles
• Food waste
• Hard plastics
• Non-recyclable packaging such as crisp packets and polystyrene.

The first stage of this campaign will involve residents receiving a door step visit from a trained officer representing Caerphilly County Borough Council. These visits will begin this week and continue throughout August and September. All officers will have clearly marked identification badges.

Cllr Nigel George, Cabinet Member for Community and Leisure Services said, “Over recent years, Caerphilly has consistently been among the best performing areas for recycling, and this is very much thanks to the sterling efforts of the majority of our residents.

However, in moving forward we need to acknowledge that as a community, we need to do even more to ensure we can continue to meet the ambitious recycling targets set by Welsh Government.

“We recently held a consultation on recycling through our council newspaper Newsline, and the general comments we received from residents reiterated that while they do generally recycle, they would benefit from a reminder about what they can and cannot recycle – so this campaign aims to do just that”.

For further information about what can and cannot be recycled in Caerphilly county borough, please visit caerphilly.gov.uk online or call 01443 866 533.