Black box paper recycling collection
We collect your black box paper recycling every other week, which could include:
- Newspapers and magazines
- Catalogues and phone books
- Cardboard packaging and boxes (flattened or cut up to fit inside your recycling box, or left in a neat, manageable 2ftx3ft bundle next to it) also include boxes for pizza, cereal, eggs etc.
- Cardboard tubes (e.g. toilet rolls)
- Cards (e.g birthday, Christmas)
- Shredded paper – place in plastic carrier bag and leave untied
Please don't put these in your black box:
- Hardback books (we cannot recycle the cover - why not give them to charity?)
- Drink and milk cartons
- Tetra Paks (e.g. juice cartons)
Your questions answered
My black box is kept outside, what happens if paper gets wet
The council collects paper and card recycling when it's wet. However, we do ask residents to store their recycling in a dry place before collection day if possible, as the recycling potential of paper is higher when it's dry.
Is wet paper and card difficult to recycle?
Wet paper and card clog together, which is damaging to the automatic sorting equipment at the automated paper sorting facility It makes separation of the different types of paper and card more difficult e.g. brown card is wet, it won’t stick to the spikes within the machinery that are used to separate out small pieces of card from high grade paper and as a result the facility have to use more chemicals to break down the high lignin (this is an organic polymer found in card that gives it strength) content of the card and bleach the colour to enable them to use the recycled paper to make products like newsprint Higher energy and chemicals requirements for the recycling and sorting processes Wet paper and card decompose rapidly, shortens fibres and makes it harder to recycle