Torfaen residents can now recycle their cardboard every week.
The frequency has changed from fortnightly in time for Christmas to help residents manage with excess cardboard recycling over the festive period. From Monday November 13, residents can leave their blue bags out every week on their usual collection day.
Councillor Mandy Owen, executive member for the environment, said: “We committed to continuing with our plan to increase our cardboard recycling service when we announced the start of our Raise the Rate campaign in April. Independent research has found around 15 per cent of purple-lidded bin rubbish contains paper and cardboard. We hope increasing the frequency of the cardboard collections will help encourage residents to put more into their blue bags.”
Increasing cardboard recycling collections is part of the council’s work to increase recycling towards with the Welsh Government’s target of 70 per cent by March 2025.
What can go in your blue bag?
- Cereal boxes
- Any cardboard packaging
- Cardboard tubes
- Egg boxes
- Greetings cards
- Corrugated cardboard
What can’t go in your blue bag?
- Plastic inserts
- Tetra paks
- Foiled card
- Polystyrene
- Wrapping paper
Flatten your cardboard
In preparation for the move to weekly cardboard collections, residents are asked to make sure all cardboard fits into their blue bags. Flattening and breaking boxes will help crews get more into the recycling vehicles quicker. It also helps to keep the cardboard dry which makes it easier and more cost-effective to recycle.
Households can have more than one blue bag and larger items, like TV or furniture boxes that are difficult to break down, can be taken to the Household Waste Recycling Centre in New Inn.
Find out what can and cannot be recycled in blue bags and where to collect additional blue bags.