Kerbside Recycling Service
The Kerbside Recycling Service is available in all towns and some villages in Angus. The service consists of a green recycling box which is collected weekly and a green garden waste bin which is collected fortnightly. Please read the information below for advice on how to use the service.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the Kerbside Recycling Service work?
Green bin and box
Kerbside collection vehicle
A 55 litre capacity green box is provided for each household to contain recyclable items and is collected weekly from the kerbside. The recycling box is sorted at the kerbside by the collection crew, who clip the box to the side of the open-topped collection vehicle and drop the items into the appropriate compartment in the vehicle.
Also provided is a 240 litre green bin for compostable materials which is collected every two weeks throughout the year. Now that much household waste can be recycled, the grey residual waste bin is also collected every two weeks, with grey and green bin collections taking place on alternate weeks.
In addition, over one thousand households in Arbroath can now recycle their cardboard as part of a cardboard collection trial. Householders can use their blue cardboard bin to recycle egg boxes, cereal and pizza boxes, toilet roll tubes, greetings cards and food and drinks cartons. The blue cardboard bin is collected fortnightly.
Where and when did the scheme start?
The Kerbside Recycling Service was implemented in four phases, as follows:
- Arbroath area: operational since May 2004
- Montrose/Brechin area: operational since March 2005
- Forfar/Kirriemuir area: operational since September 2005
- Carnoustie/Monifieth/Sidlaw: operational since May 2006.
What should go in the green box?
- Cans: food and drinks cans, aerosol cans and biscuit tins
- Glass: bottles and jars
- Paper: newspapers, magazines & brochures, office grade paper, contents of junk mail, telephone directories, catalogues and white envelopes (with or without windows)
- Plastic bottles: any kind of household plastic bottle
Ideally newspapers and magazines should go in a carrier bag placed on top of or beside the green box for ease of collection. Cans and jars etc. containing foodstuffs should be rinsed, and lids removed from bottles and jars.
If you have more recyclable items than will fit in your green box, please put them beside your box in a carrier bag. Squashing plastic bottles should create more room, but if you would like additional help please contact ACCESSLine on 08452 777 778.
What should not go in the green box?
- Books
- Brown envelopes
- Broken glass, pyrex, drinking glasses, mirrors etc.
- Cardboard
- Lids (metal or plastic)
- Yoghurt pots, margarine tubs, plastic food trays or any plastics other than plastic bottles
If an item that we cannot collect is put in the green box the collection operative will leave the item in the box to alert the householder to the fact that we cannot take it.
Why are some items not accepted in the green box?
Plastic containers and lids
At present there is no stable local re-processing firm capable of washing plastics. Some plastic containers that have contained food will require to be industrially washed, and we are therefore unable to accept yoghurt pots and margarine tubs etc. even though these items bear a recycling logo.
Plastic lids are actually made from many different types of plastic and are difficult to reprocess. For this reason, and because there is no-where on our collection vehicle to keep lids, they cannot be accepted in the green box (lids can be taken to your local recycling centre where we are collecting plastic lids for a trial period).
Metal lids can be problematic to process, becoming stuck in machinery.
Cardboard
The vehicle that collects the contents of the green box is split into compartments. There is a separate compartment for plastic bottles, cans, newspapers and magazines, as well as different colours of glass. The aforementioned recyclates use all the available space in the collection vehicle and there is therefore no room to include a compartment for cardboard, which can be a very bulky item to collect.
However, the on-going cardboard collection trial allows one thousand Arbroath householders to recycle their cardboard from the kerbside. Other householders have the opportunity to recycle their cardboard at any of the seven recycling centres in Angus.
Catalogues & books
Books are not accepted in the green box because the vehicles are limited in capacity. However books can now be recycled via the Paper point at Recycling Centres. Hard-back covers must be removed and recycled via the Cardboard points.
Please put no more than two directories or catalogues in the green box per week. Again, these materials can overwhelm the vehicles and make the box heavy to lift.
What becomes of the items collected in the green box?
Cans
All the cans collected across Angus are taken to our sorting depot where an electromagnetic extraction system is used to sort the steel cans from the aluminium cans. After sorting the cans are baled.
Steel cans are collected by Choice Recycling Management, and reprocessed at various location into items such as steel piping or steel cans.
Aluminium cans are taken to Alloa, from where they are collected and taken to the Novelis smelting plant in Cheshire. Re-processed aluminium is generally used to make more aluminum cans.
Glass bottles and jars
The glass collected in Angus is transported to the O.I. (Ohio Illinois) re-processing plant in Alloa, Clackmannanshire, (formerly known as "British Glass"). There it is crushed into "cullet" which is used to make new glass bottles and jars. Recycling glass saves between 24-30% of the energy required to make a new bottle from raw materials, which cuts down on the use of coal or oil and thus also reduces the amount of pollution released into our atmosphere.
Newspapers & magazines
Newspapers and magazines collected in Angus are transported to Shotton Mill, a huge paper processing plant in Deeside, North Wales, where they are pulped and recycled back into paper for the newspaper industry.
Plastic bottles
The household plastic bottles that are collected fall into various different categories, but the most common ones are "P.E.T." which includes clear and coloured fizzy drinks bottles, and "H.D.P.E." including milk containers and fabric softener bottles.
Plastic bottles from the green box and recycling centres are taken to our sorting depot where they are baled, and then collected by our buyers. Some plastic bottles are shipped abroad for re-processing and some are sorted and re-processed in the UK.
P.E.T. bottles are turned into polyester fibre, which can be spun to make filling for anoraks, sleeping bags, mattresses and clothing. It takes only 25 bottles to make one fleecy jacket. H.D.P.E. bottles can be recycled into hard plastics such as guttering, wheelie bins and water butts etc. The green recycling boxes that we use in Angus are in fact made of recycled H.D.P.E.
What should go in the green bin?
- Lawn mowings & weeds
- Small branches & bark
- Sawdust & wood shavings
- Hedge clippings
- Flowers & plants
- Small quantities of shredded paper (no more than the volume of one carrier bag per green bin collection).
What should not go in the green bin?
- Fruit and vegetable peelings
- Coffee grounds & tea bags
- Soil or turf
- Cooked food
- Meat or dairy products
- Plastic bags or liners
- Animal faeces.
If the collection crew discover a green bin contaminated with any of the above items they will leave a flyer explaining that the bin could not be emptied due to contamination.
Why can't I put food waste in my green bin?
To comply with the British Standards Institution's PAS100 quality standard, which ensures that a consistent, high quality compost is achieved, the council can no longer accept kitchen waste in the green garden waste bin.
Once this Publicly Acceptable Standard is achieved, the finished compost can be recycled back into the community. For more information visit the WRAP (Waste Resources Action Programme) website's compost specifications section.
What can I do with my food waste?
Home Composting
Home compost bins are the ideal solution for disposing of kitchen waste such as fruit and vegetable peelings, egg shells, coffee grinds and tea bags and makes a useful product for your garden. A variety of compost bins are available at a subsidised price. Visit the Home Composting A-Z page to view the selection of bins.
If you have a lot of food waste such as cooked food, bread and dairy products, which cannot be composted in a standard home compost bin, then you could consider using a food waste digestor. For more information visit the Waste Aware Scotland website.
Love Food Hate Waste
There are many ways you can reduce the amount of food waste you produce. The average householder throws away £430 of food waste every year. If we stopped wasting all this food, we could prevent the equivalent of 1.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year in Scotland. This is the same as taking 1 in 4 cars off the road.
If you would like to find out about the ways to reduce your food waste and save money and the environment, then visit the Love Food Hate Waste website.
What becomes of the green waste collected in the green bin?
The contents of the green bin are taken to a central composting facility near Forfar, where the green waste is shredded into small pieces and formed into "windrows". The windrows are long rows of compostable waste, up to three metres high and sixty metres long, which are turned at regular intervals to encourage the breakdown of the waste. When the waste has broken down sufficiently it is used for land restoration.
Is help available for households that need it?
The Kerbside Recycling Service requires householders to manage their waste. However, where large families struggle with the fortnightly collection of their grey bin, or where other criteria are met, an additional bin can be provided on a loan basis, reviewable every two years.
Where a householder cannot manage to lift their green box to the kerbside a recycling bag can be provided instead (other alternatives may also be available). If a householder has difficulty wheeling their bin to the kerbside due to age or a medical condition a "wheel-out" can be arranged on receipt of a doctor's letter.
What else can I do to reduce my waste?
A recycling centre exists in each town in Angus where additional recyclable materials can be disposed of, along with bulky waste and general waste.
In addition, you can donate serviceable items to charity. Contact details for local charities who can make use of a wide range of items, from crockery to furniture, are outlined on the Furniture Reuse and Charity Shops A-Z entries.
Who do I contact for further information?
Contact us using the Online Enquiries & Requests form or via ACCESSLine on 08452 777 778, or visit your local ACCESS office.
View or download our Kerbside Recycling Service guide (760 KB PDF)
or our international leaflet (775 KB PDF) in Czechoslovakian, Polish, Russian and English.
To learn about other ways to reduce, reuse and recycle your waste and save valuable resources, visit the Waste and Recycling Services page.
Service Page: kerbsiderecyclingscheme.htm
Service Details Last Reviewed : 26 March 2010