Residents across Tendring have helped get the district’s new recycling service off to a strong start, with the weight of material collected from green boxes more than doubling in the first two weeks.

Tendring District Council (TDC), working with waste contractor Veolia, introduced the expanded kerbside service on 5 October following the rollout of around 70,000 additional green recycling boxes.

Households can now recycle glass bottles and jars, cartons and plastic pots, including yoghurt pots, from home alongside their usual green box materials.

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting on Friday (23 October), Councillor Adrian Smith, TDC Cabinet Member for Environment, welcomed the successful introduction and thanked residents for making use of the service.

He said: “This is a really encouraging start – in the first two weeks, we collected more than double the weight of material from green boxes than we were collecting previously.

“Making it easier for people to recycle from home was at the heart of this change, and it is good to see residents putting the expanded service to use.

“Moving from delivering around 70,000 extra boxes to collecting the additional recycling is an important milestone.

“A change on this scale takes a tremendous amount of work, from planning and communications to distributing containers and getting the new collections underway.

“On behalf of Cabinet, I would like to thank our officers and the teams at Veolia for making this happen, and residents for embracing the changes. Together, we are helping Tendring recycle more.”

The expanded collections form part of the council’s new waste and recycling contract and mean residents no longer need to make a separate trip to a recycling bank to dispose of glass bottles and jars.

Glass can go in the green box alongside other accepted materials, but residents are asked to be mindful of the weight of boxes, which collection crews lift by hand. Broken glass should not be put out for recycling.

Residents can find more information about what they can recycle and check their collection calendar at https://www.tendringdc.gov.uk/content/recycling-changes.