Broadland District Council has introduced a free kerbside collection service for textiles, small electrical items and batteries that has started across the district today. Items need to be placed in weatherproof standard size carrier bags or smaller and placed out beside either the recycling or rubbish bin on the residents collection day. The bags cannot be mixed meaning that textiles, electrical items and batteries all need placing in separate bags. This is because they are sent to different end destinations for reuse or recycling.

Electrical, battery and textile_External A4 poster

Understandably some residents are contacting Broadland about the use of carrier bags. They appreciate that this isn’t ideal but the items need to be separated into their individual material streams, kept together during transport and protected from the weather. There is also limited capacity in the cage under the vehicle and boxes will not be appropriate.   There is a need to keep the items together in their material streams and dry during transport, where they may be subject to road surface water, and this means that it is not possible to provide reusable bags or boxes as they cannot be returned to the householder on collection. The belief is that the benefits of reusing and recycling the textiles, batteries and electrical items through this service outweighs the use of plastic bags. This service will reduce the amount of textiles, small electrical items and batteries currently placed in the rubbish bin. It will make the reuse and recycling of these items more accessible to residents especially those that are unable to travel so the only option has been to place them in the rubbish bin at home.

This service is for all properties that have individual bins and not for those that have shared/ communal bins. Trials will take place later this year at some communal sites and the results of these will hopefully help as to expand the service further to these properties.

Here are some FAQs for your information – Final FAQ kerbside WEEE textile baterries.

If you have any further questions please contact [email protected]