Bins, rubbish and recycling

Waste collection

How you can help

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Waste Collections

Derby City Council has worked tirelessly to secure additional support to ensure the collection of recycling waste continues.

Additional crews will be working alongside our Streetpride team to collect recycling waste from Tuesday 31st March.

Last week, we made the difficult decision to suspend the collection of our brown bins to allow us to focus on general waste and recycling collections. With the Government’s announcements on social distancing and vulnerable groups, our team size reduces. Knowing that this would mean the loss of even more routes, we quickly worked to establish alternatives to ensure we could continue to provide this critical service.

Collecting black bin and clinical waste remains our number one priority. We will continue to collect black bins and clinical waste on your normal collection schedule.

If your black bin is missed, please leave it out for 48 hours and we will do our very best to return to empty it. If after this time, your black bin hasn’t been emptied, please take it off the street until your next scheduled black bin collection. We cannot collect any additional black bin waste left at the side of bins.

With the addition of crews from the private sector, we will be able to maintain blue recycling bin collections. Please clearly present your bins on your scheduled collection day. We will do our utmost to collect additional recycling; please place this in boxes or loosely bag it so that crews can see what has been presented. Please do not use black bin bags.

As with black bin collections, if your bin is missed please leave it presented for 48 hours and we will attempt to return and empty it. After this time, please take your bin off the street. You can put it back out on your next scheduled blue bin collection. 

If you have an assisted collection, crews will continue to collect your bin from a pre-agreed point and return it for you.

We collect bins between Tuesday and Friday each week. If your bin is missed, you should present it on the following days and we will do everything we can to return and empty it. Please do not leave bins out on the street unless they are presented for collection.

Check your bin day

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank residents for their patience and understanding whilst we did everything we could to maintain services.

We’ve listed some other key things that everyone needs to do, below. Please follow this advice.

Brown garden and food waste bin collections are still suspended and will remain so until further notice. Raynesway HWRC remains closed until further notice.

To help us get your bins emptied, here’s what we need you to do

Reduce your waste as much as you can

Please, only buy what you need – especially when it comes to food. Love food Hate Waste has a wealth of information about storing food to make it last longer and the best way to make the most of the food you have at home.

Where you can, try and buy products with little or no packaging. The majority of waste comes from packaging. Packaging like plastic bags and films can be returned to supermarkets for recycling.

You should only use your black bin for things that can’t be recycled such as nappies, pet waste, sanitary products and wet wipes (please do not flush wet wipes).

Find out more about ways you can reduce your waste.

Recycle as much as possible

Recycling can be stored at home without any risk if you rinse any food or product residue from it.

• Plastic bottles, pots, tubs, trays
• Glass bottles and jars
• Metal tins, cans and aerosol cans
• Paper and cardboard

To make the most of the room in your bin, after rinsing, make sure you squash down plastic bottles, pots, tubs, trays and metal tins and cans. Please make sure that any glass is in the bin and not left at the side of the bin. Cardboard (which takes us the most room) should be flattened down and left next to your bin. Please don’t put plastic bags in the blue bin, we cannot accept them and will not be able to empty your bin.

Read more information and download Your handy guide to recycling plastics.

Put the right things, in the right bin

So we can empty your blue bin, please make sure it isn’t contaminated with anything like plastic bags or other household waste. Contaminated blue bins cost lots of time and money.

Home composting

If you can, give composting a go with your garden waste. We have lots of information about home composting and where to get compost bins, on our website.

There are also options for composting food waste.

Putting your bins out

Please make sure that your bins are clearly presented where we can see them. It may not be your normal collectors who empty your bins.

If you live in a cul-de-sac, you can help us enormously by bringing any bins to the end of the cul-de-sac. This saves our drivers and collectors lots of time trying to reverse vehicles safely into these areas. Don’t forget, some of our drivers are newly trained.

Our collectors touch around 2000 bins a day so please wear gloves or wipe down the handles of your bin when you bring it back in.

Fly tipping and littering is still an offence

We know changes to refuse collections are frustrating but dumping rubbish and littering is still an offence. Public Protection Officers are still patrolling the city and will take the appropriate action against anyone caught fly tipping or littering.

Pick up after your pooch

Pandemic or not, our faithful friends still need a walk. Please make sure that you are picking up any mess they leave behind.

Bonfires and Burning Waste