Dorset Council is supporting Recycle Week 2026 (14 to 20 September), the UK’s biggest annual celebration of recycling, encouraging residents to recycle more of the right things, more often.

The national campaign, led by Recycle Now, highlights how everyday items can be transformed into valuable new products when recycled correctly.

Thanks to the efforts of residents across Dorset, the county already has one of the best recycling records in the country. But recycling the right items in the right place remains just as important as ever.

Each year, billions of recyclable items across the UK are thrown away instead of being recycled. When materials are recycled correctly, they stay in use for longer, helping to reduce waste, save natural resources and cut carbon emissions.

As part of Recycle Week, Dorset Council is encouraging residents to think twice before throwing items away and to check whether they can be recycled instead. The campaign uses a range of recyclable characters to show how everyday items can be transformed into something new, from shampoo bottles becoming garden furniture to yoghurt pots being recycled back into new packaging.

You can help make a difference by:

• using your green lid recycling bin for paper, card, cartons, tins, cans, aerosols, foil, plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays
• recycling glass bottles and jars in your green box
• recycling food waste in your brown bin
• taking batteries to local retailers, Household Recycling Centres or putting them in a small, clear bag and leaving this on the lid of your recycling bin on collection day. Putting batteries in a bin can cause fires during collection and processing
• subscribing to the garden waste service to have your garden waste collected from your kerbside
• visiting HRC’s for items that cannot be collected from home

Cllr. Jack Jeanes, Dorset Council’s Cabinet Member for Place Services, said:

“Recycle Week is a great opportunity to celebrate what Dorset residents are already achieving and to remind ourselves that every item recycled correctly makes a difference. Thanks to everyone’s efforts, our recycling rate in Dorset is an impressive 59.4%, one of the highest in the country, but there’s always more that we can do.

By making sure we’re putting the right materials in the right bins, we can keep valuable resources in use, reduce waste and help tackle the climate and nature crisis. Small actions at home really do add up, and together we can continue building on Dorset’s excellent recycling record.”

Recycle Week has inspired action since 2004 and brings together communities, councils and organisations across the UK to encourage more recycling and reduce waste.

To find out more about Recycle Week this year, visit: www.recyclenow.com/recycle-week-2026