Waste Services Notices

Thurrock's getting ready for winter and the council's waste and recycling team are leading the way with free bags for all that extra Christmas recycling.

Cllr Victoria Holloway, portfolio holder for environment, has said: "Some families find that they have to put their recyclable waste into their green or grey bins at Christmas because the blue one gets filled up really quickly.

"This year we are working with are partners Nordic Recycling to provide clear plastic bags for extra recycling which can be placed beside the blue bin on collection day over the Christmas and New Year holiday."

The bags will be available from the council offices, libraries and area offices, from village stores and the council's waste and recycling team will be at a number of local Supermarkets across the borough handing them out over the next few weeks.

Cllr Holloway said: "This is the first time that we have been able to provide recycling bags to our residents thanks to Nordic Recycling, the company that handle all of Thurrock's recycling. This is a way people can continue to recycle wherever possible."

Details of the stores where the bags are being given away are available below.

Thurrock's Christmas collection schedule for 2012/2013 has also been announced.

There will be no collections after Friday 21 December until Thursday, 27 December when the previous Monday schedule will be collected, with Tuesday's collected on the Friday (28 December).

Scheduled Wednesday collections will be picked up on New Year's Eve, and Thursday's on Wednesday, 2 January. The Friday collections will be on Thursday (3 January) and normal rounds will start again on Monday, 7 January.

Christmas waste and recycling collections

Friday 21 December - normal collection day
Monday 24 December moves to Thursday 27 December
Tuesday 25 December moves to Friday 28 December
Wednesday 26 December moves to Monday 31 December
Thursday 27 December Moves to Wednesday 2 January
Friday 28 December moves to Thursday 3 January
Monday 7 January - normal collection days resume

Supermarkets

Sainsbury's Thurrock, Friday 9 November, 9:30am-11:30am
Sainsbury's Thurrock, Friday 9 November, 5pm-7pm
Sainsbury's Thurrock, Saturday 10 November, 9am-11am
Asda Tilbury, Thursday 15 November, 6pm-8pm
Tesco Express Stanford-le-Hope, Friday 16 November, 2:30pm-4:30pm
Morrisons Corringham, Tuesday 20 November, noon-2pm
Morrisons Corringham, Wednesday 21 November, 4pm-6pm
Tesco Express Stanford-le-Hope, Friday 23 November, 2:30pm-4:30pm
Asda Tilbury, Friday 30 November, 10am-noon
Co-op East Tilbury, Wednesday 5 December, 10am-noon
Morrisons Grays, Friday 7 December, 5pm-7pm
Morrisons Grays, Friday 14 December, 10am-noon

Village stores

Bags will also be available from the following stores from 9 November:
High Road, Orsett
High Road, Horndon-on-the-Hill
Church Road, Bulphan
Aveley, Community Hall

Thurrock is leading the way in cutting the amount of rubbish going to landfill.

And now the rest of the country is catching up.

The council has been involved with the Keep Britain Tidy's Big Tidy Ups for some time and is helping promote a pilot scheme launched by Keep Britain Tidy and Recycle Now.

Nationwide, more than 20,000 groups have collected more than 90,000 bags of rubbish as part of the Big Tidy Up and, to mark this year's Recycle Week (20 to 26 June), the Big Tidy Up is adding a recycling element to the scheme in pilot areas up and down the country, providing community groups with blue recycling bags for clean ups.

Keep Britain Tidy's chief executive Phil Barton said: "It is time for everyone to realise that litter is not just unsightly, making areas look unloved and having a negative impact on health and the environment, it is also a wasted resource.

"It is fantastic that Thurrock is helping Keep Britain Tidy and Recycle Now pilot this new development.

"We need to change public perceptions about litter - a problem that costs £858 million a year in England to clean up - and encourage people to do the right thing."

Cllr Val Morris-Cook, Thurrock's cabinet member for environment, added: "It's great that Keep Britain Tidy recognises our efforts, but we have been providing blue bags for community cleans ups for a while where the area of the litter pick is suitable.

She added: "We give advice on what to recycle and so on, so this is nothing new for us, its just that Recycle week are promoting it nationally next week.

"We support Community Clean Ups throughout the year and by separating some of the materials picked up, our local communities will not only be helping love where they live, but they will be helping reduce our reliance on landfill and helping to capture valuable resources."

For more information, see our Guide to Organising a Community Clean Up.

We are currently experiencing a problem with some residents contaminating the blue bin with rubbish rather than recycling, the refuse is being hidden in carrier bags and black bin liners. The result of this is that the increased levels of contamination are leading to loads or parts of loads being rejected and sent to landfill.

As of Monday 6th September, we had to take the decision to ban all plastic bags from the blue bin and are encouraging residents to reuse their plastic bags when they go shopping or to recycle them at the facilities provided at the supermarkets. This change was communicated to residents by press releases in recent editions of the Thurrock Gazette, through updated information on the council's website and through targeted information delivered with the latest 'Thurrock' magazine. Unfortunately because of the high volume of contamination we do not have the manpower to return this week and empty the bins but please take all plastic bags out of your blue bin and your normal collection will take place next week.

For residents using the light blue recycling sacks supplied by Thurrock Council to specific households, please continue to use these sacks and your recyclable waste will be collected as normal