Everyone living in Bexley is being asked to do their bit for the environment by making sure they put the Right Rubbish in the Right Bin, reducing the amount of waste going to incineration and saving money that can be invested in other vital Council services.

Every household will receive a handy pullout recycling guide in their Spring Bexley Magazine currently being delivered. It is hoped that this will encourage more people to recycle even more items and help Bexley get back to its rightful position as the number one London Borough for recycling, a position we previously held for 17 years.

Non-recyclable rubbish in your green bin has to be incinerated and this costs at least three times more per tonne than recycled waste and causes higher gas emissions contributing to climate change. If you put your rubbish in the wrong bin then everything in that bin is contaminated, it cannot be recycled and has to be incinerated.

Councillor Richard Diment – Bexley’s Cabinet Member for Places said:

We can all do our bit for our community in Bexley by simply putting the Right Rubbish in the Right Bin so that as much of our waste as possible is recycled into new materials rather than having to be incinerated.  
The increased costs of incinerating rubbish and collecting and sorting contaminated recycling are ultimately borne by all of us, as Council taxpayers. By making sure the right things are in the right bins, we can all help save time and money”.

In our borough, recycling that is placed in the white-lidded bin gets taken to a Materials Recycling Facility run by N+P in Crayford where the material is sorted into types via a mix of machinery and hand sorting. The materials are then sold as raw materials to be recycled into new products.

Giving packaging, cans and glass a quick rinse to remove bits of leftover food before recycling them not only keeps your wheeled bin clean, but it also reduces the health and safety risks of handling contaminated items for the people doing the hand sorting at the recycling facility.

Recycling that is placed in the blue-lidded bin (paper/cardboard) is recycled at PALM Recycling paper mill in Norfolk which is the largest paper mill in the UK and the cardboard is recycled either in the UK or in Europe. Paper/cardboard that is wet or greasy cannot be recycled. By keeping clean paper and card apart from your other recycling you help save the council around £450,000 a year, which we can spend on other services, like schools and roads.

Food waste collected in your brown food box at home is sent to Biogen in Hoddeson and goes through a natural process to transform it into green energy and food-grade fertiliser. Garden waste is recycled into different grades of compost at the Envar site in Swanley.

You can find out more about what goes in each bin and what happens to your recycling by visiting our Which bin should I use page.

Thank you for helping us by putting the Right Rubbish in the Right Bin.