Recycle More is a new kerbside service, adding new materials to weekly recycling collections: household and food plastic pots, tubs and trays; food and drink cartons; small household batteries; and small electrical items. With so much more recycled each week, rubbish will be collected every three weeks. Extra advice and support will be available for families using nappies and similar hygiene products. Recycle More will roll out across the county in phases: Phase 1 all households in Mendip – end October/early November 2020 Phase 2 all households in South Somerset – end of June/early July 2021 Phase 3 Somerset West & Taunton (Taunton Deane area) – end September/early October 2021 Phase 4 Sedgemoor and Somerset West & Taunton (West Somerset area) – end February/early March 2022 All residents will be sent full information well ahead of the change in their area, starting with the first “Get ready for Recycle More” leaflet six weeks ahead (see four images on this page). Garden waste and clinical waste collections remain unchanged. You can view and download a printable version of the “Get ready for Recycle More” four-page leaflet here. What Recycle More will recycle Every week: all existing materials – including food waste, paper, card, cans, aerosols, foil, glass bottles and jars, plastic bottles – plus: Household and food plastic pots, tubs and trays Tetra Paks and other beverage cartons Small electrical items Small household batteries New for you, the Bright Blue Lighter recycling materials will go in a fold-flat Velcro-closed tough Bright Blue Bag. As now, you will be able to order replacement or additional containers free online 24/7 by signing up for and using your My Account. How to be ready, now Recycle More is an important change, and you can be ready for it right now, wherever you live. Make sure you have all the right containers – green box, black box, brown food bin, and rubbish bin – now and not later. Missing any? Never use other containers; order the right ones with your My Account here. Recycle all food, every scrap, and all the other materials – the details here in our complete guide. Check what you can drop off when passing recycling sites – all the details and opening days/hours here. Then see the difference Recycle More will make: Recycle all you can kerbside Store separately or take to a recycling site all the materials taken weekly in Recycle More Check your rubbish bin after one, two and three weeks Finally, consider if there are ways you could reduce the amount of rubbish left in your bin or black sacks, from high street recycling of plastic bags to reusable nappies and hot composting. Somerset residents back Recycle More Trials of Recycle More for well over 1,000 Somerset families of all shapes, sizes and housing, including large families and those with children in nappies, took place for months to make sure it would work. A few residents were initially concerned that they would not manage, but that soon switched to surprise at how little was left in their rubbish bin. By the end of the trial, 86% of the people who responded to our survey made clear they preferred Recycle More. Somerset is far from being the first to make this change. Extra recycling and three-weekly rubbish collections for millions of people are already running successfully in many other areas 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. In the trial with 1,000+ Somerset households, it did not happen. 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 will be taken every week that might have attracted pests, 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. Support on offer to all Well before Recycle More starts where you live, we will send you a complete guide to the new service and a collection calendar, which will also be available online, and there will be staff available to answer your questions and address any concerns. Meanwhile, Mendip residents can log on to quiz Somerset Waste Partnership about Recycle More with Facebook Q&A sessions and online Talking Cafes. The next Q&As sessions at facebook.com/Somersetwaste are as follows: Saturday 10 October 11am-12noon Thursday 29 October 7pm-8pm SWP will also hosting Recycle More discussions as part of two Mendip Talking Café Live events run by the Community Council for Somerset (CCS). Just visit https://www.facebook.com/talkingcafesomerset and join the conversation on the following dates and time, or watch the recorded sessions later. Wednesday 14 October 11am-12noon We can all Recycle More Most people in Somerset recycle and want to do more. Despite this, when Somerset Waste Partnership checks what people put in their rubbish bins, it shows that half the rubbish thrown away could simply and easily be recycled in today’s kerbside collections with no changes or new services. No one in Somerset can afford to continue like this, wasting millions of pounds throwing away thousands of tonnes of recyclable materials. Disposing of rubbish is expensive, recycling is far cheaper. Every resident of Somerset has to think about what that means. Do we want to recycle more or would we like more money available for public parks, street cleaning, services for children and disabled people? Do we want to recycle more and keep council tax down, or let costs rise? 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 dirty luxury none of us can afford. Recycle More is the next big leap forward.