Blue bin: dry recycling
How to recycle: check, wash, squash
The blue bin is for dry recycling from your home. Using it correctly helps reduce waste, protect the environment, and keep collection costs down.
Every Derby household with a kerbside collection can have a blue bin. If you don’t have one, you can request one free of charge.
Not everything with a recycling symbol can go in your blue bin. The recycling logo only means an item is technically recyclable somewhere - not that it's recycled in Derby.
To make sure your recycling is collected and processed properly:
- Check: Always follow Derby’s instructions - use the Recycling Helper rather than relying on packaging labels.
- Wash: Empty and rinse containers to remove food or drink.
- Squash: Flatten plastic bottles and cartons, put the lid back on, and fold cardboard to save space.
If your recycling bin is too full...wash and squash!
Wash any food or drink containers and squash them.
Squash down cardboard boxes, wash glass jars, squash cartons and remove any non-recyclables such as plastic bags.
So, wash and squash to make more space in your bin and make sure the materials are the best possible quality.
Thank you for recycling!
What goes in your blue bin
Your blue bin is for clean, dry recycling, placed loose inside the bin (never in bags). Accepted items include:
- paper and cardboard – magazines, newspapers, envelopes, cereal boxes, toilet roll tubes
- food tins and drinks cans - emptied and cleaned
- plastic bottles, pots and trays – rinse, squash, and pop the lid back on
- glass bottles and jars – rinse and remove lids
- food and drink cartons – for example, juice or soup cartons
- aerosol cans
- clean foil and foil trays – with no food residue.
Top tip: Squashing and rinsing reduces smells, saves space, and improves recycling quality.
What not to put in your blue bin
Some items cannot go in your blue bin because they contaminate recycling or are unsafe. Do not include:
- food waste
- nappies or sanitary products
- plastic bags or film
- textiles or clothing
- electrical items, vapes, or batteries
- polystyrene
- crisp packets, sweet wrappers and other flexible plastics.
Top tip: If you put these items in your blue bin, it will be tagged as contaminated and may not be collected. Crews check bins before emptying, and repeated contamination can lead to follow-up visits from a waste minimisation officer.
Where to take common contaminants instead:
- Plastic bags and film - supermarket soft plastics collection points.
- Crisp and snack packets - supermarket soft plastics recycling.
- Electricals, toys and batteries - Raynesway HWRC or local drop-off points (see the Recycling Your Electricals website)
Why you should recycle
Recycling saves resources, protects the environment, and cuts costs for the city. In 2022/23, nearly 20% of material in Derby’s blue bins was contamination, costing the Council over £450,000 to remove and dispose of.
By recycling correctly, you:
- reduce the amount of waste going to treatment or disposal
- help protect wildlife and the environment
- save money for essential Council services.
What happens with dry recycling once collected?
- Collection: Crews empty your blue bin into recycling vehicles.
- Transfer station: Loads are delivered to a local transfer station where obvious contamination is removed by hand.
- Sorting facility: Materials go to a Material Recovery Facility (MRF) where they are separated by machine and hand into individual material streams.
- Processing: Each material is sent on for recycling into new products - from paper and cans to plastic bottles and glass.
Find out more about how recycling is processed by watching this video from Rstuff (resource conversation charity) video:
Have you ever wondered what happens to the plastics you recycle?
Whether you're out and about or recycling at home, it's important to recycle right.
Empty and then replace the lids on bottles before recycling.
Your plastic milk bottles should be given a quick rinse before replacing the lid and recycling.
Remove and dispose of film layers and absorbent layers in plastic pots, tubs and trays as well as any food.
Separate different materials from each other such as the clean card sleeves found around some plastic containers.
Rinse off any food residues - you can use your old washing up water to help with buttery tubs and greasy food trays.
Put your items clean dry and loose in your recycling bin.
Do not put items in bags.
The recycling journey from your house starts with the recycling teams collecting your recycling along with thousands of others.
Some recycling lorries have two compartments. This allows your Council to keep stuff separate that has been put into different bins such as glass.
The lorries unload at Material recovery facilities where the recycling is sorted into different material types such as paper, cardboard, metals and plastic.
If the recycling is acceptable, and not too dirty, it is loaded onto conveyor belts.
Staff pick out items that should not be there or are too large or may cause Machinery breakdowns.
A series of sorting machines help separate the different materials, such as paper cardboard metals and Plastics.
Mixed Plastics then pass machines which sort the Plastics into plastic types.
Plastics are baled and sent to sites that prepare them for use in new packaging and other plastic items.
They cut up into flakes, then washed removing any labels and other impurities.
The flakes are sorted by colour and quality, before being melted into pellets.
PT pellets are moulded into small test tube shapes with a screw top.
These are transported more efficiently to bottling factories compared to full-size bottles.
Here they are heated to make them soft and are blown up to make a full-size bottle ready to fill.
HDP pellets from milk bottles are sent direct milk bottling sites where they're heated and moulded into new bottles ready for labelling, filling with milk and packing on trolleys ready for delivery to shops.
Pellets from pots tubs and trays and cleaning product bottles are used to make new plastic products such as playground equipment, toys, car parts and items for construction.
These are just some of the ways our plastics are given a second life.
More help with blue bins
If you're unsure where something should go, try our Recycling Helper - it gives instant answers for hundreds of everyday items.
If you still need advice, contact us.