UPDATE: Recycle More is up and running throughout Somerset – adding new materials to weekly collections and collecting hundreds of tonnes of extra recycling each week. Most people in Somerset recycle, yet more than half the contents of the average Somerset bin could have been recycled. We want to make it easier for everyone to recycle even more. It helps protect our environment, tackle climate change and saves money. Play your part, do what is right and join Recycle More’s success. A customer survey among users found 84% of respondents preferred the new service to their old one. If you think you may need extra guidance or support for Recycle More, you can request it here. What has changed? More recycling collected every week As well as all existing materials – including food waste, paper, card, tins, cans, aerosols, foil, glass bottles and jars, plastic bottles – Recycle More added the following to weekly kerbside recycling collections: Plastic pots, tubs and trays Food and drink cartons (such as Tetra Paks) Small household batteries and electrical items A new recycling container Everyone should now have a new recycling container – a 60-litre Bright Blue Bag – for their lighter recycling materials. It is tough to last, base-weighted to stay put, Velcro-closed to make sure the contents stay put, folds flat for easy storage when empty, and easy to clean. Three-weekly rubbish collections With so much more recycled each week, rubbish is now collected every three weeks. Extra advice and support is available for families using nappies and similar hygiene products. Garden waste and clinical waste collections are unchanged. NOTE: If your home has a shared/communal collection, we will be expand your recycling collections, depending on the space available, later in the year at a date to be confirmed. More details here. If you have an individual household recycling collection, watch this short film to see how the new service works. https://www.somersetwaste.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Recycle-More-new-family-friendly-recycling-for-Somerset.mp4 Information and support for all During the final roll-out, everyone in Sedgemoor and West Somerset should have received a “Get ready for Recycle More” leaflet (this information is available in Polish, Romania and Portuguese; if you need information in another language or format, please get in touch). This was followed by the “Recycle More is coming soon” leaflet, which included your own collection day calendar for the coming year. You can follow @somersetwaste on Facebook for regular updates, and contact Somerset Waste Partnership using My Waste Services at somersetwaste.gov.uk or via your district council. Recycle right with Recycle More Recycle More is an important change, so make sure you are recycling right. Do you have all the right containers – green box, black box, brown food bin, and rubbish bin? Missing any? Never use other containers; order the right ones online using the My Waste Service menu here. Start and maintain good habits – recycle all food, every scrap, and all the other materials – the details here in our complete guide. Think reuse – are there ways you could reduce the amount of rubbish left in your bin or black sacks, from high street recycling of plastic bags and much more thin-stretchy-crinkly-soft plastics – see this guide to what and where – to reusable nappies and hot composting. Recycle More – making a big difference The new service has gone really well since it was launched in October 2020 across Mendip. Since then it has been rolled out across the county. Hundreds of extra tonnes of recycling are being collected every week, with big increases most recyclables as well as the new materials. At the same time, the weight of rubbish collected has been falling substantially too. Somerset is far from being the first to make this change. Extra recycling and three-weekly rubbish collections are already running for millions of people up and down the country, including our neighbours in East Devon. More are planning to make the change. No extra fly-tipping or other issues More waste taken each week as recycling and less rubbish left to collect means there is no reason – or excuse – for fly-tipping. The most common items fly-tipped are bulky household items, such as old sofas, and commercial waste dumped by rogue tradespeople. No changes are planned to current bulky waste collection services or recycling site services. We will also continue to offer commercial waste recycling services at 10 recycling sites, and offer information on business waste collections. As well as continuing to take food waste every week, much more food packaging that might have attracted pests is taken every week, so Recycle More will help. As always, we advise you to bag items like nappies, adult hygiene products and pet wastes before putting them in your refuse bin. We can all Recycle More Most people in Somerset recycle and want to do more. Disposing of rubbish is expensive, recycling is far cheaper and money saved can be spent on the many other council services offered by SWP partners. We also need to think about the resources we throw away. Every time people throw a food can or a plastic bottle in their rubbish bin, it can never come back, and those natural resources will not last forever. Recycling more is a simple, easy option for all of us and just takes a few minutes each week. Endless rubbish is an expensive and a dirty luxury none of us can afford.