Addressing contamination

Improve the quality of the recycling you collect

By improving the quality of the recycling that your local authority collects, you can reap the financial benefits of reduced collection and reprocessing costs and increased revenue through the sale of higher quality materials.

Our Recycling Guidelines were developed in consultation with the recycling industry and provide a conclusive list of what can and cannot be recycled and how recyclable materials should be presented for collection by householders.

Targeted communications, focusing on low capture materials and non-target materials that are often incorrectly placed in recycling, will have the most impact.

Key contamination reports and guidance

  • Tackling contamination in dry recycling

    An updated practical guide for local authorities on managing the quality of recyclable materials collected at the kerbside.

    Find out more

  • Recycling Guidelines

    A national agreement from the recycling industry on what can and cannot be collected for recycling from householders and how those materials should be presented for collection.

    Find out more

We run regular free, insightful webinars led by WRAP experts, like the ones below, to aid local authorities with their collections and communications.

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Contamination in recycling: Ideas to help you tackle the problem

webinar

Watch a webinar with WRAP's Recycling and Collecting Advisers, Debbie Slater and Julia Bragg, where they discuss the learnings from WRAP and Resource London’s projects to help tackle contamination in your Local Authority.

Also discussed were ideas on solving the seemingly unsolvable contamination problem and ways to gather local evidence to present to decision makers.

 

Train the trainer: Helping crews act on contamination

Webinar

This webinar will help collection crews understand the problems caused by contamination in dry recycling. WRAP's Recycling and Collecting Advisers, Debbie Slater and Julia Bragg, run through our practical and interactive training sessions, which can be adapted to your own collection system and procedures on dealing with contaminated containers.

The training has been designed to change thinking and crew behaviours and has grown from WRAP’s successful historic crew programme. It can be adapted to run as one long, two shorter, or three snappy training sessions.

We recommend that our training is used in tandem with effective supervision and encouragement of crews, to ensure their action on contamination sticks.

Download our contamination communication assets

These customisable assets are for local authorities to use with residents to help tackle contamination in dry recycling.

  • Contamination communication materials: User Guide

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  • Contamination communication materials: A5 leaflet template

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  • Contamination communication materials: Amber bin or box tag

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  • Contamination communication materials: Red bin, box or sack sticker

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  • Contamination communication materials: Amber bin, box or sack sticker

    Find out more

  • Contamination communication materials: Red bin or box tag

    Find out more