New film urges Leicestershire residents to recycle right

As part of a continued effort to encourage residents to recycle right, Leicestershire County Council has released a short film, showing the damaging effects of putting the wrong things in the wrong bins.

The two-minute video (which can be viewed here) gives a behind the scenes look at what happens to residents’ recycling and focuses on the three main contaminants saturating Leicestershire’s recycling bins – dirty nappies, textiles and food waste.

The film exposes the extent of contamination in Leicestershire and shows the by-product of disposing of rubbish incorrectly.

Up to 4,000 used nappies have to be removed, often by hand, from Leicestershire’s recycling every day, with a tonne of food waste and countless articles of clothing being plucked from piles of recyclables each month. It’s dirty work.

And these contaminants account for just some of the 5,500 tonnes of soiled material that go to waste each year, costing the council around £500,000 to dispose of.

Blake Pain, lead member for environment and transport at the county council, said: “Putting the wrong items in your recycling bin can contaminate good quality, recyclable material. Not only can this have a detrimental impact on our environment, it is time consuming to manage and costly to the taxpayer.

“But by making sure we’re recycling right, by rinsing pots, tubs, jars, trays and bottles, placing dirty nappies in general waste bins and donating old clothes to local charity shops or clothing banks, we can work towards making Leicestershire a more environmentally sustainable place to live.

An extended version of the film, has also been release, illustrating Leicestershire’s recycling processes, from kerbside collection to sending on for reprocessing – watch it here.