Council to collect unwanted clothes in Kettering next month

Residents will have a bag and a tag attached to their blue bin with instructions on what should be placed inside the bag.

The bag should then be placed next to residents’ blue bins on their next recycling collection day (two weeks later).

The council carried out a waste analysis this year and found that a large amount of clothing and textiles were being put into residents’ black and blue bins, all of which could have been donated to charity shops or recycled.

Instead it was put into residents’ bins at home and ended up in landfill.

This led to the introduction of the council’s twice-yearly clothing and textile collection service, which successfully diverted 22 tonnes of textiles from landfill on its first round.

The textiles collected in this next round of collections in January will be sent to a reputable reprocessing company where they will be sorted.

The good quality textiles will then be sent for reuse and the other materials will be shredded and used as stuffing or industrial wipes.

Brendan Coleman, head of environmental care at Kettering Council, said: “The first round of textile collections was a great success so let’s try and make this one even better.

“Please continue to donate to charity shops or your local textile banks as normal.

“It’s those textiles that end up in the black bin that we want to collect, to stop costing the Kettering taxpayer thousands of pounds in disposal fees.”

The only Christmas bin collections affected this year will be those which would have taken place on December 26.

Those collections will instead take place on Christmas Eve.

Residents have been told to present their bins by 6.30am on Saturday instead of the Monday this year.

No other collections will be affected over the Christmas period.