THE City Council is increasing educational work for residents about recycling plastics that will help people in Chelmsford gain a better understanding of the types of plastic that can be recycled by the council’s collection service.

This will help to raise awareness of the reprocessing stage and the new plastic products made, and reduce recyclable plastics going to landfill.

Chelmsford council operates a kerbside sort collection system which ensures that the material collected are clean and of the highest quality. This allows the council to sell the material to UK reprocessor where the market allows and helps it to part-fund their recycling and waste services.

In 2011, the city council had the foresight to recognise the potential adverse impact that discarded waste plastics could have on the environment. The city council therefore extended the kerbside household collection, which was limited to plastic bottles, to include all plastic food packaging, including pots, trays and film, as well as composite food and drink cartons, such as Tetra Pak.

This has been very successful and allowed the city council to remove large amounts of plastics from the general waste stream, giving the opportunity for these materials to be recycled.

At that time, the city council also invested more than £600,000 in a new material sorting facility

Residents are asked to wash and squash plastic, put lids back on bottles then place them in the clear plastic bags and leave these outside their properties by 7am on the morning of collection.

There are many different types of plastics packaging in circulation and the council wish to ease the confusion as to which products are recyclable in Chelmsford. To find out what packaging can be recycled in Chelmsford, go to www.chelmsford.gov.uk/recycling