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Cambridge City Council

Waste and recycling management policies and strategies

Household Waste and Recycling Policy

We:

  • are committed to increasing recycling in order to maximise use of finite resources thereby minimising energy use and waste disposal.
  • want to develop services that bring about reductions in carbon emissions.
  • support the waste hierarchy and understands the need to emphasise waste prevention and reuse.

One of our four medium term objectives is to 'Promote Cambridge as a sustainable city, in particular by reducing carbon dioxide emissions and the amount of waste going into landfill in the city and sub-region'. These objectives hold for both waste generated from households and from the street. We have recently introduced street litter recycling to support this approach.

We operate an alternate weekly collection of general rubbish (in black bins) one week, followed by recycling (blue bins) and compostable waste (green bins) the next week.

This policy document is designed to lay out agreed policies and standards that are clearly defined to avoid any uncertainty both for residents and officers of the council.

Read our Household Waste and Recycling Policies and Procedures [PDF, 0.3MB] for more detailed information about our bin collection policies.

Climate Change Strategy

Our Climate Change Strategy sets out our objectives for how we will address the causes and consequences of climate change:

Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy

Cambridge City Council is a member of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Waste Partnership. Find out more on the Recap website.

Cambridge Rubbish & Recycling Collections Research 2012

In 2012 we commissioned a study to assess kerbside waste and recycling activity from households in Cambridge. This is a summary of the key findings.

Service related queries

For questions about a service we provide, please use our contact us form