Recycle More is successfully up and running in Mendip and coming to other parts of the county soon. South Somerset is due to see the expanded recycling service launch at the end of June this year, with the Taunton Deane area due to follow in the autumn and Sedgemoor and West Somerset early in 2022. Most people in Somerset are recycling to some extent, 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. What is changing? 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 adds 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 will get a new recycling container – a 60 litre Bright Blue Bag – for their lighter recycling materials. It is tough, base-weighted, Velcro-closed and folds-flat. Three-weekly rubbish collections With so much more recycled each week, rubbish will be collected every three weeks and collection days will change for some people. Extra advice and support will be available for families using nappies and similar hygiene products. Garden waste and clinical waste collections remain unchanged. 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 If you live in property with a shared/communal collection we will also be expanding your recycling collections, depending on the space available. More detail here: Latest information here. Information and support for all Everyone will be sent full information before anything changes for them, starting with a “Get ready for Recycle More” leaflet which is due to arrive in South Somerset in mid-May. This will be followed by a “Recycle More is coming soon” leaflet which is due to arrive in South Somerset in early June. You can follow @somersetwaste on Facebook for regular updates and take part in some dedicated Recycle More out of hours Q&A sessions. We are also taking part in Recycle More discussions at South Somerset Talking Café live events run by the Community Council for Somerset (CCS). (Talking Café Live events run by the Community Council for Somerset You can contact us using My Waste Services at somersetwaste.gov.uk or call your district council. If you are in South Somerset the number is 01935 462462. How to get 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. Missing any? Never use other containers; order the right ones online using the My Waste Service menu here. Get into good habits – Recycle all food, every scrap, and all the other materials – the details here in our complete guide. Practice – set aside the new Recycle More materials for a week and see how much space it takes up (you can then take them to a recycling site or put in your rubbish). 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 to reusable nappies and hot composting. Recycle More so far The new service has gone really well since it was launched in October as Mendip residents gave it their backing. Its first three months saw recycling increase by 18%, with crews collecting an extra 1,275 tonnes. That included a 24% increase in plastics. More than 20 tonnes of small electricals and two tonnes of batteries were also collected for the first time. At the same time, the weight of rubbish in Mendip bins fell by nearly 20%. 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 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. 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.