Your bins

Waste and recycling is something that affects all of us and we want to make it easier for residents to understand what goes in what bin and what happens to it.

On the following web pages, we have lots of information about bin collections, what you can recycle (and what you can’t), where your nearest bottle banks are and where you can take bigger items to your local household recycling centre.

What do you want to do?

Note: Please note all of the buttons on this page open in a new window.

Your bin collection service

Ipswich Borough Council, in partnership with other Suffolk councils, operates a three-bin system:

  • BLUE Bin: For dry recyclable products such as cardboard, plastics, and cans.
  • BLACK Bin: For general rubbish like crisp packets, used nappies, food waste, and items like Tetrapak.
  • BROWN Bin: For garden waste including grass clippings, leaves, dead flowers/plants, and windfall fruit (but not kitchen waste).

Ipswich Borough Council is the only Suffolk council that does not impose a charge for brown bin collections.

On-the-Go recycling in Ipswich Town centre

To support recycling efforts in Ipswich town, eight new dual recycling bins have been installed. These bins are designed to make recycling more accessible for both residents and visitors. 

For more information, read On-the-Go Recycling.

Assisted pull-out service

The assisted pull-out Service is intended to provide support to frail, elderly and disabled Ipswich residents who are unable to bring their wheeled bins/recycling sacks to the kerbside for collection and remove it from the pavement afterwards.

Households are unlikely to be accepted onto the scheme if there are other people residing at the same address who are physically able to move bins or recycling sacks out for collection.

To request to receive this service, please contact Customer Services on 01473 432000.

Collection days and changes

To find out your bin collection day, use our tool below by entering your street name. This tool will show whether it is a blue bin week or a black bin week.

Check your collection day

Ordering a repair or a replacement bin

Replacement bins cost £45. 

If you have a lost or damaged a bin, please report this online by clicking the button below.

Ordering a repair or a replacement bin

For further information please see Replacement bin charges.

We will arrange for a replacement and where necessary provide you with sacks to use in the meantime.

Recycling

Recycling can be quite daunting, so we want to make it easy to follow with our DO’s and DON’T’s.

We all want to help our environment and cut waste, so it is important to get it right. Putting things that can’t be recycled in your blue bin can cause something called contamination, so it means it will have to be incinerated and not recycled.

While we all learn about how to recycle all the right things it is worth remembering that the four biggest “culprits” which can turn up in our blue bins and prevent us from being much more environmentally friendly are:

  • Nappies
  • Food
  • Glass
  • Tetrapaks

Proper sorting of these items can greatly improve recycling efficiency. Glass should be taken to bottle banks or household recycling centres (Portman Road or Foxhall), and food waste and nappies should go into the black bin.

Find out what CAN and CAN'T go in your blue bin

Suffolk Refill Directory

Shops and businesses all over Suffolk are offering refill services for household cleaning products and dried foods such as rice, oats and chocolate in a bid to reduce waste.

Find a refill shop using the online directory

Where does my waste go?

Refuse is not sent to landfill. Instead, it is taken to the Energy from Waste Facility in Great Blakenham, where it is burned at high temperatures. The heat generated is converted into electricity using a steam turbine.

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