Residents help power soft plastic recycling in Denbighshire
Residents taking part in a collection trial are making a positive difference to recycling in Denbighshire.
Following the first week of the Waste and Recycling team’s soft plastic collection trial, staff at the Denbigh Waste and Transfer Station are seeing a big increase in the number of these materials collected.
Waste and Recycling Service staff collected and sorted 2,700 bags of soft plastic at Denbigh.
The 12-week soft plastics collection trial started to find the best way to collect and recycle your plastic bags and wrapping. This is in preparation for forthcoming Welsh Government changes to recycling requirements which includes all local authorities in Wales.
Around 4,500 homes were invited to take part in the trial which included a mix of housing types and areas to enable the service to get a good and fair understanding of how different homes will use the service.
The areas include homes in Denbigh, Prestatyn, Rhyl, Rhuddlan, Corwen, Llangollen and Efenechtyd.
Soft plastics are collected either in a bag supplied to half of the residents taking part or a suitable bag used by the other half of the homes in the trial. These are taken to the Denbigh Waste and Transfer Station and sorted by staff to make sure the soft plastic is separated due to how it can be recycled compared to hard plastic.
Work is also going to on find out the impact on the tonnage of non-recyclable waste collected during the trial, weight of the soft plastic collected, items that cannot be recycled through the trial collection and the appropriate method of collecting going forward when the new Welsh Government changes start.
Councillor James Elson, Lead Member for the Environment and Transport, said: “The response in the first week by residents taking part in this trial has been great. They have embraced this collection of items that would normally end up in the non-recyclable bin by how much soft plastics have come back with the other recyclable items.
“Moves to recycle soft plastics will benefit residents by creating more space in their non-recyclable bins and helping the environment by cutting down on the impact of non-recyclable waste on our environment.
“We are grateful for residents who are taking on this trial as their efforts and feedback will help us shape how we collect soft plastic materials going forward to better support recycling in Denbighshire.”
“I also want to thank our staff who have helped make the first stages of this soft plastics trial a positive success through their hard work out on the road and also at the waste and recycling transfer station.”
Options regarding collecting future soft plastics will be considered once the trial has been reviewed, and any future changes will be communicated to residents at the appropriate time.
If you are taking part in the trial you can find more information on our soft plastics collection trial webpage which helps you understand what you can and cannot put out for collection.
The last collection in this trial is on Friday 4 December 2026.