Ceredigion County Council website

To encourage more residents to recycle more of their waste, Ceredigion County Council will shortly be introducing changes to its residual waste (“black bags”) collection service.

From 23 June 2025 the Council will only collect up to three “black bags” per 3 week collection cycle. The purpose of the change is to encourage residents to make full and proper use of the Council’s recycling services, especially the food waste collection service. Similar restrictions for residual waste are already in place in the other 21 Welsh Local Authorities and have helped those Councils to improve their recycling performance and reduce waste disposal costs.

The restriction does not include Absorbent Hygiene Products (AHP) bags provided by the Council. There will be no limit to the amount of recyclable waste that can be put out for collection in clear bags, food waste bins or glass boxes, if the containers are used in the right way.

Since the current waste collection service was introduced in 2019-20, the advice has been that residual waste bags should contain only non-recyclable waste. The aim of this change is to encourage residents to recycle as much as they can.

Councillor Shelley Childs, Ceredigion Cabinet Member for Highways and Environmental Services said: “Ceredigion County Council’s recycling services are designed to make recycling easier, not harder. The residual waste restriction, which is already in place in all the other Welsh local authorities, aims to increase the ability of Ceredigion as a county to recycle as much waste as possible. This will help Ceredigion become a more sustainable county and increase our already excellent recycling performance even further. We are asking everyone who can recycle to recycle as much of their waste as possible and to recycle their food waste in the weekly collection service.”

Where all efforts have been made to recycle and there is still excess non-recyclable waste, or there are circumstances where residents are unable to recycle due to disabilities and/or impairments, a larger residual waste capacity may be allowed. In these circumstances, residents, or someone acting on their behalf, will be asked to complete and submit an application form for approval. The form can be found here.

Residents will no longer be able to take unsorted waste to any of the Council’s Household Waste sites. This is not an outright ban on residual waste at the sites, but residents are required to sort anything for recycling before visiting a site, or to sort residual waste bags on arrival. Residents are also reminded that they will be asked for proof of residency (such as a driving license or utility bill) when using one of the county’s household waste sites.

Councillor Shelley Childs added: “When the ‘no unsorted waste’ practices were introduced at the household waste site in Aberystwyth earlier this year, the amount of residual waste received at the site halved, which is great news for the environment. I would like to thank residents for respecting the changes at the household waste sites, and for helping to keep the earth’s natural resources in circulation, reducing the need, and the cost, of waste disposal”.

• The Absorbent Hygiene Products (AHP) Collection Service will continue to be available for residents. More information can be found here: www.ceredigion.gov.uk/resident/bins-recycling/absorbent-hygiene-waste-ahp/
• More information about the changes to residual waste, including FAQs, can be found here: www.ceredigion.gov.uk/residualwaste
• The A- Z of recycling can be found here: https://www.ceredigion.gov.uk/resident/bins-recycling/a-z-of-waste

For any queries, residents can contact our Customer Services Contact Centre on 01545 570881 or by email on clic@ceredigion.gov.uk