As part of North Herts and East Herts new joint waste contract, participating residents will receive blue bags to put all their plastic bags and wrapping in, including crisp packers, confectionary wrappers, plastic film, bubble wrap and foil-lined packaging.
The blue bags should be presented on their usual collection days, with a secure double knot and placed in their blue-lidded recycling bin, on top of other materials.
Tim Hoskin, executive member for environmental sustainability, said: “We are so pleased to be joining North Herts in this trial. Although plastic bags and wrapping don’t weigh that much, early results from participants in Knebworth demonstrate that they can take up lots of space in people’s bins and being able to recycle this material is great news for the residents of Sawbridgeworth.”
FlexCollect
East and North Herts councils were chosen to take part in this fully funded pilot and expansion trial, to test the collection of plastic bags and wrapping as part of their current fortnightly recycling collections.
Plastic bags and wrapping are a considerable challenge as they represented 22% of all UK consumer plastic packaging in 2020, but only 8% was said to be recycled.
The trial is part of a larger £2.9 million Flexible Plastic Fund (FPF) FlexCollect project, which involves WRAP and nine local authorities across England, and aims to inform government and industry on how plastic bags and wrapping should be added to existing household collection services.
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