Purple box

The purple box can be used to recycle newspapers and magazines, directories, card, catalogues, junk mail, envelopes, Christmas cards and gift wrap (paper only), office and printed papers.

This box needs to be set out at the kerbside in a clearly visible location by 7am on your collection day. There is no need to remove staples or windows from envelopes. Please do not put liquid food and drinks cartons (sometimes referred to as tetrapaks) in your purple box. These contain layers of plastics and sometimes foil that are unwanted by our paper merchants. There are five liquid carton banks located in the Borough, please see our full list of bring bank sites.

Paper makes up nearly 30% of our household waste so please recycle as much of it as possible.

Cardboard
Please tear and flatten cardboard so that it will fit within your purple box. The reason we ask you to do this is because when we empty your boxes, we sort all of the material into separate hoppers on the side of our vehicle. When full, the hoppers are lifted and emptied into the body of the vehicle. The hopper for paper and card is just 30cm x 90cm (1'x 3').

This is absolutely fine for cardboard such as cereal packets and other packaging, but large pieces of card jam the hopper. This causes serious delays to the service. Unfortunately our crews do not have time to do this job for you and so sometimes have to leave card behind. Please flatten and tear card so that it fits into the box as pictured below.

Cardboard presented in boxes such as the example below, will be left un emptied.

Large pieces of cardboard can be taken to a bring bank site.

Shredded paper
Many residents shred some paper to protect themselves from identity fraud. Shredded paper is excellent material to add to your compost heap as it will rot down and provide a useful source of carbon to your composting mix. If you prefer to recycle it, please put it all in a paper bag or old envelope to stop it blowing out of your collection box.

If you find one box is not enough we can supply additional boxes. Please call customer services for further details.