Refuse & Recycling

About Waste Services

The Waste Services team provides refuse and recycling collections, a special uplift service, operates four Recycling Centres and over 80 Recycling Points. Refuse collection is seen as being one of the most important services the Council provides. Weekly refuse collections are made from over 43,000 households, which equates to more than 2 million wheeled bin collections in the year.

Recycling is a top priority for East Lothian Council and the Council want to encourage people to recycle as much of their household waste as they can. In 2007-08 East Lothian residents managed to recycle just over 35% of waste produced in the area- well done!

Currently around 94% of households in East Lothian have access to a regular kerbside recycling collection. The brown bin collection for garden waste operates every fortnight and covers 85% of East Lothian households. The Recycling Box collection for paper, cardboard, glass, cans and plastic bottles operates fortnightly and covers almost 94% of households.

The Council also provides a network of over 80 Recycling Points which have facilities to recycle glass and cans, with majority now also having facilities to accept paper and textiles. At the four Recycling Centres in the county there are also facilities to recycle a range of other materials including electrical goods, food and drink cartons, scrap metal, garden waste, rubble, cardboard, wood and plastic bottles.

Key priorities for Waste Services in the future are working towards recycling and composting 40% of East Lothian's waste by 2010.

Please note that the Recycling Centre Winter Opening Hours will commence on Saturday 27th September 2008.