A proposal has been put forward to make changes to the city’s recycling services. Plans include replacing the current 140-litre blue recycling bin with a larger 240-litre version, and to expand the range of materials accepted in the brown bin.
These proposals are the result of Council’s ‘Simpler Recycling’ public consultation which took place in September 2024. The consultation asked for residents’ views on Sheffield’s future waste and recycling services with the aim of making recycling easier for residents, encouraging everyone to recycle more and to protect the planet.
If given the go ahead, during 2026/27, the existing 140-litre blue bin would be replaced with a 240-litre blue bin. This will make it easier to recycle paper and card and is in response to the clear message from residents that the current blue bin isn’t big enough for the paper and card generated for recycling. As part of the exchange process, households would receive a new 240-litre bin and have the option to keep their existing 140- litre blue bin for storage. All bins removed would be sent for re-use or recycling.
The collection cycle would stay the same, with households continuing to receive a weekly collection. Black bins would still be collected every two weeks, and each recycling bin collected every four weeks.
Over 10,000 people gave their feedback to the consultation, which covered two sets of questions around current and future waste and recycling: one aimed at residents in houses, the second aimed at residents in flats.
Waste and recycling services affect everyone, and residents have given us a clear message about what they are happy about and what they would like us to change. The views given are in line with the results of our annual customer surveys with residents too, which is reassuring.
Councillor Joe Otten, Chair of Environmental Services and Regulation Policy Committee at Sheffield City Council
As a result of the consultation, councillors will be asked to vote on proposals at a committee meeting next week (12 September), which would see:
- additional capacity for the collection of paper and card for recycling with a swap of the current 140- litre blue bin to a 240-litre blue bin
- the addition of plastic pots, tubs, trays, aerosols, foil, and cartons into existing brown bins by 31 March 2026
- the addition of plastic films into existing brown bins by 31 March 2027
- households being able to request additional recycling capacity
Our focus now will be to assess the proposals as a committee so that we can make a decision and start implementing the changes residents have asked for and that we must make to follow national legislation.
If the committee agrees the recommendations, not only will we doing what is important to our residents’ individual recycling needs, but it will also mean that everyone in Sheffield will be able to recycle more, helping to improve our planet for current and future generations.
Adopting these recommendations would increase the effectiveness of our recycling services, allowing Sheffield to take advantage of ongoing Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging payments from central government from 2025/26.
Councillor Joe Otten
Sheffield City Council and councils across England are required to put plans in place to make recycling simpler and easier for residents and to help the planet.
From 31st March 2026, plastic pots, tubs, trays, cartons, aluminium foil, and aerosols must be recycled and plastic films by 31st March 2027. From 2025, packaging producers must pay a fee for the packaging they supply to or import into the UK market. This is called extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging.
More information about Simpler Recycling is at www.sheffield.gov.uk/news/2024/simpler-recycling-plan-england.
The full committee report is at item 11.