Recycling on Estates

 

Residents feedback

If you have recently received a letter about the location of new communal recycling sites, the introduction of clear sacks or new recycling chutes on your estate and wish to give your comments please click on recycling location feedback.

Changes to door-to-door recycling on estates

Recycling services on Islington’s estates will be changing over the coming months.

We will be putting out hundreds of new communal recycling sites but we will have to withdraw the door-to-door recycling collection service because of new government fire safety guidelines on collecting recycling from flats.  Also, an extra 10,000 residents will soon being able to recycle their food waste and more blocks of flats will get easy to use recycling chutes.

We want to make sure we get recycling right on each estate so residents currently receiving a door-to-door collection will receive a letter detailing the proposed changes together with a map showing the location of the proposed new recycling sites and a feedback card. We welcome feedback about these sites as residents are familiar about what would work on their estate.

The new communal recycling banks are convenient as residents can recycle any day they like and at any time between 8am and 8pm. We will empty them frequently to make sure they do not overflow and the bins will be clearly labelled to show what residents can recycle in them

Recycling costs less than waste disposal. Last year residents saved Islington more than £500,000 by recycling.

 

Compulsory recycling

From 4 April 2011 recycling at home is compulsory in Islington. To find out more information, please visit our Compulsory Recycling page.

Islington Council provides weekly doorstep recycling collections for estate residents at 25,000 properties throughout the borough, and are currently rolling out communal food waste services to a further 10,000 households. Estate residents in Islington are currently recycling the equivalent weight of twenty-two double decker buses a month!

Collection times

Please place your container outside your front door before 8am on your collection day.

Replacement Bags, Missed Collections and Further Information

Please contact us using via General Enquiries link on the right of this page for replacement bags or boxes, information flyers about the service or to report missed collections or problems.

Estates' bring sites

There are over 250 estates with recycling banks. These are generally large mixed recycling bins, suitable for putting loose, unsorted recyclable materials in.

You can put the following materials in the banks:

• Drinks cartons
• Household plastic packaging
• Paper
• Cardboard
• Glass bottles and jars
• Metal tins and cans

Chute recycling on estates

Islington Council is working hard to make recycling as easy as possible for everyone. As part of this work, six estates are now receiving a chute recycling scheme following successful recycling trials in the EC1 New Deal for Communities area. On each of the estates, chutes are being converted so that residents can use one chute to recycle and another chute to dispose of their refuse.

The chute hatches are painted and clearly marked for recycling, and signs advise residents which chute to use for recycling and which chute to use for refuse.

At present, the chute recycling scheme is operating at:

• Rahere House
• President House 
• Grayson House
• Galway House
• Gastigny House

Food waste recycling

14,000 households located in estates and blocks are already recycling over 14 tonnes of food waste a week! Another 7,000 flats will be included in this scheme by March 2011.

About 30% of the waste in your household bin is food waste. It is important to reduce the amount of food waste going to landfill as it produces methane which contributes to climate change.

What can I put in my caddy?

You can put any raw or cooked food in your caddy. You can even scrape uneaten food straight into your caddy (to find out more click onto recycling in the kitchen).

What do I do?

• Residents are given a small caddy and liners to collect food scraps in their kitchen.
• After collecting food waste for two - three days tie the liner and take it to the communal food waste container which will be located in a bin store or by recycling banks on your estate.
• For more caddy liners please collect from your local library, ask your caretaker, estate office or concierge. Please do not use plastic bags as this will contaminate the recycling. The caddy liners provided will compost, plastic bags will not.
• The food waste will be turned into compost at the Ecopark composting facility in Edmonton.

Click on Estates food waste leaflet in downloadable documents below for more information.

If you would like your estate or block to be considered for this scheme email recycling@islington.gov.uk or ring Contact Islington 0207 527 2000.