Reuse, Recycle, Renew

Recycling in Chelmsford

Chelmsford City Council collects paper, cardboard, plastics, cartons, cans, glass, small electrical items, reusable clothing and shoes, and food waste. There’s also a year-round garden waste collection service for all households. Please use these services to recycle as much of your waste as you can. This means more raw materials don’t need to be taken from the earth – we can use what we’ve already got and in doing so, produce less carbon emissions which helps reduce climate change.

We provide plenty of recycling on the go bins throughout the city to help you recycle even when you’re not at home. If you own a business in Chelmsford, you can use the council’s excellent recycling collection service with flexible collection arrangements to suit all business types.

Why Does Recycling in Chelmsford Have to be Separated?

The reason Chelmsford City Council asks its residents to separate their waste is to ensure that the materials we collect and sort are of a high quality. We know not all councils ask their residents to do this, so it might surprise you if you have moved here recently.

By collecting separated recyclable materials at the kerbside we can be sure that the waste materials we collect are of good condition. Once collected we then further separate these materials, such as the steel cans from the aluminium cans or the plastic bottles from plastic trays using our Material Sorting Facility, located at our Freighter House site in Chelmsford.

This process ensures that the recyclable materials we collect are in high demand by local recycling factories, who will buy the separated materials from us and make them new high quality products. The money earnt from selling your recycled materials to local recycling factories part-funds our waste collection services in Chelmsford, meaning there’s more public money available to support other local services like developing Chelmsford’s road network or improving public health.

Reducing and Recycling Your Plastic Waste

Over the last century, plastic has become part of everyday life. The problem with plastic is that most of it isn’t biodegradable. It doesn’t naturally breakdown like paper or food, so instead it can remain in our environment for hundreds of years. We are becoming a plastic planet. But we don’t have to – if we reduce our plastic consumption, reuse where we can and recycle the rest, we will be well on our way to a far more sustainable future!

Knowing what can or can’t be recycled and working out how to take the first steps to living in a more eco-friendly way can feel confusing at first, but once you start, it becomes very easy. There are lots of ways you can find out more:

• Check out the Green Living At Home section of this website. You’ll find plenty of info and advice on how you can start to make some simple but sustainable choices in your everyday life.
• The Love Your Chelmsford team are available to give talks on recycling and sustainability to community groups and organisations. To find out more, please contact us here.
• We also support the Essex Plastic Pledge program. Run by the Love Essex team at Essex County Council, the Plastic Pledge is a way for all residents, schools and organisations in Essex to come together and commit to trying to reduce plastic waste.
• There’s an annual Recycling Open Day when Chelmsford residents of all ages can come behind the scenes at the Recycling and Waste Depot in Springfield (not normally open to the public). There are tours around the depot, opportunities to see how the recycling process works, the chance to ask our staff any question you like, plus all sorts of competitions and games for the youngest visitors. Keep an eye on our Events page to see when the next Open Day will be.