North Kesteven has new purple bins – and here is how to use them

Every home in North Kesteven now has a new purple-lidded recycling bin for dry paper and card, and this is all you need to know about them.

The black bin with a purple lid is the fourth bin for North Kesteven households, and was rolled out across the area during August after a successful 12-month trial at nearly 7,200 homes.

The bins will be used for clean, dry paper and loose cardboard, which can be recycled up to seven times if not touched by other recyclable materials, according to North Kesteven District Council.

Collections will begin from the end of September and the purple bin will be taken monthly in a sequence of: black, green, black, purple (and repeat). Some households will also have a brown bin collection, if they have paid for this.

The first collections will start on Monday, September 27, and they will follow the collection schedule of all your other bins. For example, if your bins are collected on a Wednesday, the purple bins will be collected on September 29, then October 27, then November 24 etc.

The lids are thinner than other bins as they use less plastic, further highlighting the push for recycling in the county, but they will be standard issue 240-litre bins, much like the other three you will have.

They were introduced by North Kesteven District Council because more than 12.5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard are recycled in the UK each year, accounting for 20% of all household waste.

The council says that if each person in the country recycled just 10% more paper, it would save around five million trees every single year.

Green recycling bins will still accept glass bottles and jars, plastic bottles, tubs and trays, as well as metal tin cans, food tins and clean tin foil, but these are the only things the council want in green bins.

If you put something in your bin that might contaminate the waste, the council collection teams might put an advisory tag on your bin with information about what the bins can accept and what they can’t.

From October, collection will be refused for bins that do not have the right items in them, and all information on what goes where can be found in the leaflets that came to your door with the bin delivery.

North Kesteven is the first district in Lincolnshire to take on the clean, dry paper and card bins, with the rest of the county expected to follow suit within the next year or so.

NKDC have uploaded a number of handy explanation videos on their Vimeo channel, which can be accessed here.