Milton Keynes rises incredible 76 places in national recycling success charts following wheelie bins launch

Since the new bins were wheeled out, the city has risen from number 83 in the national recycling success charts to number seven.

"It’s a brilliant job, MK! Let’s get to number 1 next year,” said a spokesperson for Milton Keynes City Council this week.

They added: “Each year, Milton Keynes City Council handles around 125,000 to 130,000 tonnes of waste and recycling. More and more people in MK are motivated to get it right. The WRAP Recycling Tracker 2021, shows that 88% of households now consider recycling normal behaviour

However, most people are putting at least one thing in their recycling bins that should not be there. As a result, the council has published a special A to Z guide of what can or cannot be recycled. You can check the list out here.

The council introduced red, blue and black wheelie bins in September 2023 as part of a new waste collection service aiming to improve recycling rates and reduce street litter.

The new system involved most households receiving three new wheelie bins on top of their existing green bins, leaving many people with a problem of where to store them.

The transition improved the environment by eliminating the use of 11 million single-use recycling sacks annually.

Within six months, local recycling jumped by more than a third, with the recycling of glass, paper and cardboard recycling becoming 37% higher.

The council also introduced state of the art electric-powered waste trucks to help the environment further. And ‘black bin’ waste that can’t be recycled is used to generate electricity, which powers many of the city council’s waste collection, cleaning and maintenance vehicles.

The council spokesperson said: “Recycling more of what used to be thrown away is much better for the environment, helping to transform existing materials into new products instead of using far more energy to create products from scratch.”

They added: “Milton Keynes City Council is saying a big thank you to residents for recycling more than ever.”

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