Derby is backing this year’s Recycle Week (14-20 September), the nation’s biggest annual recycling campaign.

Inspiring action since 2004, the week shows how recycling truly makes a difference. This year’s theme calls on residents to rescue their recyclables which are the items that often get overlooked.

The awareness week is delivered by Recycle Now, a campaign led by leading environmental organisation WRAP (the Waste and Resources Action Programme), which works to reduce waste and tackle climate change.

Each year, billions of items that could be recycled are put in the wrong bins around the UK.  Each item that is recycled correctly helps save energy, and keeps valuable materials in circulation to be used again and again.  

To help bring this to life, the Recycle Week campaign stars a cast of recyclable characters, whose stories show how valuable they are, and why they’re worth rescuing from the rubbish. 

How you can help

Your blue bin accepts: 

  • Paper and cardboard
  • Food tins and drinks cans
  • Plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays
  • Glass bottles and jars
  • Food and drink cartons

And don’t forget to rescue these often-missed items that should also go in your blue bin: 

  • Toilet roll tubes
  • Shampoo bottles and other plastic toiletry bottles
  • Trigger sprays and cleaning product bottles
  • Aerosols
  • Aftershave and perfume bottles
  • Yoghurt pots
  • Clean kitchen foil and foil trays (no food residue)

Remember to 'wash and squash' the items and, with your help, we can make sure these valuable materials get recycled and put back to good use.

What’s happening in Derby

Recycling activities will be taking place across the city throughout September. The Waste outreach team will be starting the week at Derby University, helping students get their recycling right and advising how to dispose of waste responsibly. The team will also be at Mackworth neighbourhood forum on Tuesday 15 September and Arboretum Park on Sunday 27 September to answer any recycling queries. During this time, they’ll also be visiting local schools to deliver recycling assemblies, helping young people understand how and why recycling matters. The team will also be supporting the Recycling Together sessions at Derby Mosque on Sunday mornings, working with the local community to encourage more people to recycle correctly and take care of the natural environment.

Councillor Ndukwe Onuoha, Cabinet Member for Streetpride, Parks and Leisure, said:

Recycle Week is a great opportunity to remind people across Derby about the difference they can make through their everyday recycling habits. Our recycling team will be out in the community, working with schools and local groups to help people understand what can be recycled and how to recycle it correctly. By making recycling part of our everyday routines, we can all play our part in keeping Derby clean and reducing the amount of waste we produce.”

Catherine David, Chief Executive Officer, WRAP said:

Recycling is one of the easiest ways we can all help to divert millions of tonnes of waste from landfill and incineration, conserve scarce natural resources and cut carbon emissions. Each year millions of shampoo bottles, aluminium foil, toothpaste tubes and other recycling are binned when they could be recycled, so this Recycle Week we're asking people to be a hero at home and rescue more recycling."

To find out more about recycling in Derby, visit our webpage. To find out more about Recycle Week this year, visit their website.