Recycle Week 2026

This week is Recycle Week, and this year’s theme is ‘Rescue me, recycle me’.

Here in the Vale, there are more and more opportunities to rescue items from the black bag and give them a new life, with our recycling services continuing to grow.

One of our newest services is soft plastics recycling at the kerbside. Following the rollout of the service across the Vale, we’re on track to recycle an incredible 250 tonnes of soft plastics this financial year - that’s 250 tonnes of material that could previously have ended up in black bags.

We’ve also introduced kerbside recycling for textiles, batteries, and small electrical appliances, giving even more everyday items the chance to be recycled rather than thrown away.

And there could be more changes on the way. Proposals for a free weekly collection for absorbent hygiene products, such as nappies and incontinence pads, and the permanent expansion of kerbside textile recycling across the Vale will be considered by Cabinet later this month. If approved, more information will be shared with residents ahead of the proposed launch in November.

While recycling should always be our first choice, there are a small number of items that can’t currently be recycled and need to go in the black bag.

Importantly, nothing from the Vale goes to landfill. Black bag waste is taken to the Viridor Energy Recovery Facility in Cardiff, where it is processed to generate electricity.

The best option is always to reduce, reuse and recycle wherever possible!

We’re also making it easier to recycle away from home.

As part of our wider street scene work, we’ve been replacing on-street litter bins with on-street recycling bins in town centres. This was something young people told us they wanted to see as part of climate action youth engagement carried out by our Project Zero team and Youth Council.

Recycling at source is much more efficient and helps make sure as much of our waste as possible is captured for recycling and given a new life.

If you need a little extra motivation to rescue something from the bin, here are a few recycling facts from WRAP Cymru:

• Recycling one deodorant can saves enough energy to charge your phone more than 40 times.

• Recycling one plastic trigger spray bottle saves enough energy to charge your phone more than 10 times.

• Recycling one glass perfume bottle saves enough energy to watch TV for two hours.

• Recycling eight banana peels generates enough energy to boil a kettle.

All of this work supports Project Zero, our commitment to becoming a carbon neutral Local Authority by 2030, while contributing to the wider ambition for Wales to become carbon neutral by 2050.

So, this Recycle Week, take a look at what’s in your bin before it goes out. Could you rescue something and give it another life?