Recycling education and events

Each year, we open up the gates to Chelmsford's recycling, waste and street care depot to the general public.

This is your opportunity to see how we collect waste materials from over 70,000 households every week and find out what happens to it.

You can find details of our next open day on Love Your Chelmsford, or our Facebook page.

When it comes to minimising the impact of consumption on our environment, the best place to begin is by reducing what we use. Here are some ways that we can make a difference.

Reduce

You can:

• use a refillable bottle instead of buying bottled water (see www.refill.org.uk or download the Refill app for more)
• switch to paperless billing and read news online
• bring our own shopping bags to the supermarket
• take a reusable cup to the coffee shop, with many shops offering a discount
• cut down on fast fashion and buy higher quality clothes that last longer
• freeze food that’s close to its use-by date, such as bread to make toast

Reuse

You can:

• donate unwanted items and clothing to charity and community groups
• advertise your unwanted items online using selling sites such as Gumtree, Facebook Sales, eBay and Shpock, or set up a stall at a local boot sale
• upcycle our old furniture into something even better

Recycle

You can: 

• recycle waste materials using our recycling collection services
• ask us to collect large recyclable items for a fee 
• take them to a recycling centre

The Love Your Chelmsford programme encourages to volunteer in projects to improve the quality of our local environment.

We encourage residents, community groups, schools and businesses to volunteer in projects such as litter picking and tree planting. 

You can also find out about becoming a volunteer.