Blue bin

Coronavirus: Waste

To help protect our bin crews and maintain waste collection services here in East Staffordshire, please follow the guidance issued by Government if you are self-isolating or displaying symptoms of coronavirus.

Other ESBC services affected by Coronavirus

We need your help to improve the quality of recycling collected across the Borough.

Look out for the new recycling sticker being put on to all blue wheeled bins over the coming weeks to help identify items that can be collected for recycling.

What you can put into your blue bin	*What can’t go into the blue bin
Large brown cardboard boxes	Newspaper and magazines (these should be placed into your blue bag)
Corrugated card	Envelopes (these should be placed into your blue bag)
Cereal boxes	Junk mail/flyers (these should be placed into your blue bag)
Card sleeves	Telephone directories (these should be placed into your blue bag)
Washing powder boxes	Kitchen or food waste (This should be placed into your grey bin)
Thin sheets of card	Garden waste (This should be placed into your brown bin)
Egg boxes	Black bin bags/liners
Glass bottles and jars of all colours	Foil backed card
Steel food and drinks cans	Card with bubble pack or padding attached
Aluminium food and drinks cans	Corks
Steel and aluminium bottle lids	Nappies
Plastic drink bottles	Ceramics, ornaments or crockery
Shower and bath plastic bottles	Plate glass
Plastic drink bottle tops	Mirrors
House cleaning plastic bottles	Batteries (including mobile phone batteries)
Light coloured plastic food trays	Plastic cables, ties, strapping or banding
Yoghurt pots	Plant pots
Margarine tubs	Christmas lights
Empty aerosol cans	Plastic toys
Waxed cartons	Plastic trims, frames or mouldings
Empty plastic carrier bags	Shrink wrap or bubble wrap
Clean aluminium foil and food trays	Polystyrene packaging or beads
Greeting cards	Gas bottles
	Video/tape cassettes, CD’s, DVD’s or their cases
	Electrical waste including hoses off hoovers
	Textiles or clothing
	Cushions and duvets
	Soil or rubble
	Paint tins
	Machine or engine parts
	Utensils or tools, knives and other sharp objects
	Wood and MDF
	Crisp packets
	Christmas wrapping paper
	Large pieces of sheet metal
	Burnt or fire damaged material
	Wire/cable
	Clinical waste, needles and syringes
	Dead animals
	Hazardous waste
	Ropes and belts
	Pots and pans or any other types of metal
	Bagged waste

*The Council is unable to list every item that should not be placed in your blue bin. If the item you wish to dispose of is not listed as being accepted, please DO NOT put it into your blue bin as we are unable to recycle it. Please place it in your grey bin.

The collection crews are trained to check for contamination and are unable to empty any bin which contains the incorrect types of material. We accept that residents can sometimes place the wrong items in their bin by mistake, so the crews will help by identifying the reason for non-collection.

We then ask our residents to remove the contamination before the wheeled bin gets emptied on your next scheduled collection day. Please view our contamination policy.

Please also remember to wash and squash where possible. By doing this you will be able to get more into your blue bin for recycling. If you have additional blue bin recycling this can be placed at the side of your bin in an open clear/white bag so that the crew can see that it contains recycling and it will be collected.

Recycling also needs to be placed loosely into the blue bin and not in bin liners.

We are unable to accept black bin liners or sacks.