Skip Links | Home | Site A - Z | Site Map | Contact Us | Help | Text Only |
 
 
Environment and Planning >> Refuse and Recycling

Recycling in Hastings

Back to top of page...


Recycling that we collect from the kerbside in Hastings

We collect newspaper, cardboard, metal and plastic bottles.  Make sure you put the right things in your recycling bags or bins.  If you put in the wrong things, we will not collect them!

More detail on the kinds of newspaper we collect from the kerbside in Hastings:

Newspapers

  • newspapers and magazines
  • catalogues
  • phone books (including Yellow Pages)
  • Office paper
  • Envelopes
  • Junk mail

More detail on the kinds of card we collect from the kerbside in Hastings:

Cardboard

  • carboard food packaging
  • Greetings cards
  • Corrugated card - please flatten boxes

More detail on the kinds of metal we collect from the kerbside in Hastings:

Cans

  • Aluminium drink cans
  • Steel aerosol cans
  • Steel food cans

More detail on the kinds of plastic bottles we collect from the kerbside in Hastings:

Coke bottle

  • Milk, drink, detergent and cooking oil bottles with these symbols on their bases:

Plastics recycling symbol 1 - PETE Plastics recycling symbol 2 - HDPE Plastics recycling symbol 3 - PVC

Please make sure you empty the bottles and remove their lids first!

Things that cannot be collected for recycling from the kerbside in Hastings:

We cannot recycle:

  • Machine shredded paper
  • Paper juice or milk cartons
  • Polystyrene
  • Plastic bags
  • Other plastics such as yoghurt pots, margarine tubs and food trays
  • Clothes (try our recycling sites)
  • Glass bottles or jars (try our recycling sites)
  • General rubbish

Back to top of page...


How to Recycle in Hastings and St Leonards

There are two main ways to recycle in Hastings and St Leonards.

  1. We'll come to you and collect your recycling at the kerbside.  If you're included in the Twin Bin Scheme, we'll collect your green 'recycling' wheeled bin fortnightly on your collection day.
    If you're excluded from the Twin Bin Scheme we'll collect your recycling weekly on your collection day from the kerbside in special bags that can be delivered direct to your door by contacting the Refuse and Recycling Team.  You can also collect these free bags in person from Hastings Information Centre or Renaissance House.
  2. Use one of our Recycling Sites across the town.

Back to top of page...


Recycling sites in and around Hastings

This regularly updated Google map shows all of the main recycling sites in and around Hastings together with the recycling materials they will accept.  Over the past few years, we've dramatically increased the number of recycling sites in Hastings and are constantly looking for ways to improve the service.

Please use our online form to report a problem with a recycling site.

Back to top of page...


Our Main Recycling Centre

Household items can be taken for recycling to Hastings Household Waste Recycling Centre, which is managed by East Sussex County Council.

The site is located off Bexhill Road (A259).  Head towards Bexhill from Hastings on the A259, turn off Bexhill Road at the Wyevale Garden Centre into Freshfields.  The entrance to the centre is on the right next to the entrance to the landfill site.

What you can recycle

  • Aluminium foil
  • Aerosols
  • Bric-a-brac
  • Car batteries
  • Cans/Tins
  • Cardboard
  • Cooking oil
  • Electrical goods
  • Engine oil
  • Fluorescent tubes/energy saving bulbs
  • Furniture
  • Fridges/freezers
  • Glass bottles/jars
  • Green garden waste/Christmas trees
  • Hardcore/rubble
  • Household batteries
  • Metal items
  • Mobile phones
  • Newspapers/magazines/junk mail/white telephone directories
  • Plastic bottles
  • Soil
  • Textiles/shoes
  • Timber/wood
  • TVs/computer monitors
  • Tyres
  • Yellow Pages

Accepted

  • Household waste
  • Bonded asbestos

Not accepted

  • Trade or business waste

Further information

  • Vans or trailers require an entry permit
  • Only six bags of soil or hardcore will be accepted per month
  • Only four sheets or six bags of bonded asbestos will be accepted per month
  • There is a height restriction barrier at the entrance that is set at 1.75m (5'9")
  • The site can be very busy at weekends during the summer months.  The site tends to be less busy mid-week.

A site visit to your home may be required if the site staff suspect you are taking commercial waste/recycling to the site.  All visits are carried out by East Sussex County Council staff.

Opening Hours

April to end September

Monday to Sunday: 9am to 6pm

October to end March

Monday to Saturday: 8am to 4pm
Sunday: 9am to 4pm

Bank Holidays

Open usual hours

Christmas and New Year arrangements

Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve: open 8am to 1pm
Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Day: closed
Other than those dates, normal opening hours will apply.

For further information, visit the East Sussex County Council Website.

Back to top of page...


Garden Waste Recycling Scheme

Garden waste recycled into compost
Remember that your Garden Waste can easily be turned into nutrient rich compost!

We can collect garden waste at the kerbside but not at the same time as household rubbish or recycling.  Our Garden Waste Scheme is available to everybody in the town but we would always recommend that people consider Home Composting first as this remains the most environmentally friendly method of recycling green waste.

If you are unable to home compost and want to join the new scheme, you can do so for an annual £37 fee.  In return for this, you will receive a brown wheeled bin which will be emptied from your property fortnightly.

Since the scheme was introduced in 2008, we have doubled the amount of garden waste we collect so it's making a massive contribution to increased recycling rates throughout the town.  Over 3,600 residents have already signed up for the scheme so numbers are growing increasingly limited.  If you would like to take part please contact us now.

Please remember that you can always take green waste to our main recycling centre.

Back to top of page...


Home Composting

As an alternative to getting your garden cuttings taken away, why not try home composting?

Organic waste makes up one third of our rubbish; this is a problem if sent to landfill.  Being impossible to separate from other rubbish, it will rot, producing methane – a gas that contributes to global warming.

Composting - getting set up

This leaflet was produced by East Sussex County Council and contains information about which composter or digester is the right one for your household.

You may find it useful to read our Help before downloading information.

Where to get your composter

Get reduced price composters from the East Sussex County Council website where you'll also find useful information on a range of green issues including a free 'compost doctor' service from fully trained professionals.  Alternatively, East Sussex residents can contact Blackwall Limited on 0845 130 60 90 to order reduced-price composters, water butts and wormeries.

Back to top of page...


Where Your Recycling Goes

Operatives sort through materials in a Materials Recovery Facility
Operatives sort through materials in a Materials Recovery Facility

The Twin Bin scheme has already helped us increase our recycling from 18% to 27% but there's far more to recycling than simply meeting targets.

Recycling has become a vital source of raw materials for manufacturing and reduces the need for ‘virgin’ resources such as trees and oil which is vital in these times of dramatic environmental and climatic change.  It's absolutely vital that you sort your recycling properly by making sure the right materials go in your recycling bags or green twin bin or that you take the right materials to our recycling sites and main recyling centre.  Whole loads of recycling can be rejected if the wrong items are put together or placed in the wrong container.

Your recycling is collected regularly and goes to a materials recovery facility that uses a range of technologies to sort and extract the different items.  These facilities have various markets for all the materials they sort:

  • Around 88% of recycling collected at the kerbside is paper and card and this is sold back to paper mills for re-use
  • 6% is aluminium or steel cans.  Aluminium is typically recycled into drink containers in the UK.  Steel is supplied to steel works and foundries in the UK and overseas to produce a wide range of products
  • The remaining 6% relates to plastics and goes to a wide range of companies and markets.  Recycled plastic is used to produce a variety of items including fleeces, carpets, drainage pipes and kettles.  Whilst all plastics are sent to re-processors in the UK they may in turn supply domestic and international markets.  This is likely to include Asia where the bulk of your plastic products are manufactured.

Whilst it may seem inappropriate to ship materials such long distances there is an enormous amount of shipping capacity back to Asia due to the volume of imported products we receive so the carbon footprint is in fact low.  Exporters of recycled resources are subject to stringent controls and steps are taken to confirm that materials are being recycled.

Back to top of page...


Why Recycle…

…Paper?

Each tonne of paper recycled saves 15 average sized trees, as well as their surrounding habitat and wildlife.

Since the paper-recycling scheme started we have recycled the weight of 1,970 elephants or saved 166,000 fir trees, which is an area the size of Hastings Country Park.

Recycling paper uses less energy and water than making new paper.

Paper can be recycled using kerbside collections or at our Recycling Sites.

…Glass?

Glass is one of the most easy to recycle materials.  It is 100% recyclable, it can be recycled indefinitely and recycling glass uses less energy, less raw materials and causes less pollution than producing new glass.

Recycling glass cuts the amount of waste sent to landfill and reduces waste disposal costs (every day 14 million glass bottles and jars end up in landfill), saves energy, reduces the need for quarrying of raw materials, thereby conserving the environment.

Glass should be taken to Recycling Sites for recycling.  It is not collected in the Kerbside Recycling Scheme.

…Cans and metal?

Recycling saves up to 95% of the energy needed to produce new aluminium ore and up to 75% of the energy needed to make steel from new materials.

Recycling metals reduces waste.

Aluminium can be recycled again and again without a loss in quality.

Cans and metal can be recycled using the Kerbside Collection Service or taken to Recycling Sites across the town.

Back to top of page...


Our Recycling Targets

Everyone plays an important part in helping to meet the tough targets for reducing waste and recycling more.  There are both national and local targets for recycling and waste reduction.

The European Landfill Directive requires the disposal of biodegradable municipal waste to land to be progressively reduced.  In the UK the biodegradable waste we landfill must be reduced to 35% of 1995 levels by the year 2020.

The UK waste strategy 2000 sets out a target of recycling or composting 33% of household waste by the year 2015.

In Hastings our targets for recycling are:
18% for 2005/06
30% by 2010
33% by 2015

Back to top of page...


Recycling Facts and Figures

Recycling rates are made up of two things:

  • dry recyclables (like glass, paper, card plastics and tins)
  • the composting of garden waste

Hastings Borough Council's Dry Recyclables Facts and Figures:

  • We achieved 22.9% recycling in 07/08 and were ranked 4th in East Sussex
  • If Twin Bins had been in place for the full year we would have achieved 26% and been ranked 1st in East Sussex
  • For the 08/09 our indicative recycling rate is 25.3% and we are ranked 1st - the best in East Sussex!

Hastings Borough Council's Composting Facts and Figures:

  • We were ranked 5th in East Sussex in 07/08 and for 08/09
  • Our neighbours are less urban so they generate more garden waste
  • Composting makes up a large part of many local authority areas' recycling rates
  • Areas that have concentrated upon composting to achieve good recycling rates are now having to re-think this strategy as it has an adverse impact on the Government's landfill tax allowances
  • Garden Waste collections usually increase the amount of waste collected as people stop home composting or taking garden waste to Household Waste Recycling Sites (like Pebsham)
  • As Hastings is reasonably urban we felt it was unfair for all residents to subsidise garden waste collections so we launched an opt-in scheme which has been a tremendous success with over 2,400 residents signed up to the £35 per annum service
  • Our composting tonnages have doubled and we expect our composting rate to increase but we will never see the high composting rates achieved by our neighbours Wealden or Rother because they have more gardens than we do!

Hastings Borough Council's Overall Recycling Facts and Figures:

  • In 07/08 our overall recycling rate was 23.7% and we were ranked 6th which was the worst in East Sussex
  • However, the introduction of the Twin Bin scheme in 0ctober 2007 which took our recycling rate to 27% for the remainder of that year
  • For the 08/09 our indicative overall recycling rate is 27.9% and we are currently ranked 5th in East Sussex
  • This figure is lower than some our neighbours because we do not rely on composting to achieve our recycling targets
  • Hastings residents are the best at recycling glass, paper, plastics and tins in East Sussex!

Waste Minimisation Facts and Figures:

  • Waste minimisation is also a key target and Hastings residents produce the 2nd lowest amount of waste per head in East Sussex!

Back to top of page...


This page last updated: 10/05/2010

Advice and Benefits | Business | Community and Living | Council and Democracy | Education and Learning | Environment and Planning | Health and Social Care | Housing | Jobs and Careers | Leisure and Culture | Regeneration | Transport and Streets