Mortimer Waste and Recycling guide
This page tries to summarise what to recycle where – at the roadside, the waste/recycling centres and via shops and other providers. The aim to to provide a one-stop shop for local recycling. The last two categories are particularly subject to change. You’re welcome to share other tips – contact details are below.
♻️ “By each taking small steps, collectively we can make a difference”.
📅 created: 26/5/25 updated: 28/5/25
roadside recycling
In Spring 2025, the council began collecting plastic pots & trays at the roadside, to make it easier for residents to recycle more items. Just put the extra items, clean, into the green bag. They can also be dropped off at the waste/recycling centres.
✅Accepted items
- Individual yoghurt pots – but not their film covers*
- small/large yoghurt/cream/creme fraiche (and similar) pots and their plastic – but not film covers*
- margarine and spread tubs and their plastic lids but not any foil coverings*
- Plastic takeaway tubs & ready meal trays – but not foil/film covers.
- Clear fruit trays
- Clean meat trays (that aren’t black)
- Biscuit tray packaging
- plastic milk and drink bottles (at 27/5/25 Ali Recycling takes red/blue/green/clear supermarket milk bottle tops only as does Anne Haines, for charity).
- shampoo/conditioner/shower gel bottles
- cleaning bottles – excluding trigger heads
- metal food tins
- drink cans
- aerosols
- paper and cardboard
- glass jars/bottles
Loose plastic bottle lids can be reattached after expelling any air or placed loose in the recycling bag. Glass jar/bottle lids can be left on.
📍Not Currently Accepted – but non-council alternatives exist
The following items can be either taken to one of the independent outlets, put into the black bin or taken to a council waste & recycling centre
- soft plastic wrappers/film coverings*/bread bags (Co-Op and Sainsburys take. Roadside collection starts in 2027).
- Tin foil eg from food tubs (roadside collection by April ’26).
- Hot beverage pods (take to Padworth or Newbury Waste/Recycling Centre. at 26/5/25 Ali Recyling accepts Lavazza eco caps only. For others consider Podbank)
- Tetra Paks/cartons Willink Leisure Centre car park bin or Padworth/Newbury waste/recycling centres accept. Roadside collection starts April ’26.
- Blister packs/pill packets –accepted by Little Village Pharmacy and major chemists. (Mortimer Methodist church can no longer accept)
❌ Not Accepted – place in black bin
- old-style individual white yoghurt pots
- Black plastic food trays (rare nowadays)
- Crisp packets
- Flowerpots
- cleaner trigger heads
Product scanner app
Cllr Macro (Theale) has been trialling the Scrapp app. which allows you to scan products to check their recyclabity. You may wish to try it but if it conflicts with the lists above, please take them as definitive.
food
♻️You can recycle the following types of food waste:
- uneaten food from plates
- meat, fish and bones (except red meat bones)
- bread and pastries
- fruit and vegetables (including peelings and pumpkins)
- cheese and eggs (including egg shells)
- tea bags and coffee grounds
glass
♻️ In one box you can recycle glass, including:
- glass bottles
- glass jars
Lids can be left on glass bottles and jars. Please make sure jars are rinsed through to remove food residue.
Do not put the following in your glass recycling box:
- window or greenhouse glass
- broken glass
- pyrex and drinking glasses
- light bulbs
paper and card
♻️ In one box you can recycle paper and card, including:
- egg boxes
- junk mail
- newspaper and magazines
- catalogues
- cardboard tubes
- envelopes (no padded envelopes)
- cardboard boxes/packaging (cardboard must be flattened and no bigger than 85cm x 45cm)
- greeting cards and wrapping paper (no glitter or foil)
textiles
♻️ The council collects textiles that can’t be reused, donated or upcycled, from the kerbside.
Please put them in a clear or white sack labelled ‘textiles’ and place next to your green boxes. Please don’t use charity bags because the council won’t take those.
Accepted items:
- clothing
- bed sheets
- duvet covers
Not accepted:
- duvets
- towels
- pillows*
- shoes
*You might wish to donate old pillows and duvets to animal shelters, homeless charities, or textile recycling programs, or re-purpose them (eg pet beds, draft excluders, or stuffing for other crafts).
batteries
♻️ You can dispose of most household batteries at the kerbside. This includes AA, AAA, AAAA, C, D, A23 (12-volt), PP3 (9-volt), 3v lithium cells, LR44 (1.5-volt) and the like.
Just place them in a clear bag, such as a freezer or sandwich, and leave on the top of your black wheelie bin on collection day.
This service is not available for communal bin stores.
Car/moped batteries, power tool batteries and vapes should be taken to the waste and recycling centres at Padworth or Newbury.
garden waste (chargeable)
♻️ Collection is fortnightly, on the same day as the other recycling services, but is chargeable via subscription. The council aims to phase out the charge when finances permit. Until then it has reduced the charge for the first bin, for the last two years. The subscription period runs annually from August. There’s no reduction for starting mid-year unfortunately.
small electricals
Accepted items
✅ Kitchen appliances eg kettles, toasters ✅ Telecomms & computers ✅ DIY/garden electricals ✅ Radios & music players
✅ Remote controls ✅ Mobile phones ✅ Cables and chargers ✅Household appliances eg hairdryers, irons, electric toothbrushes
✅ cordless vacuum cleaners/their batteries
Not accepted
❌ Large items (eg microwaves, large vacuum cleaners)
❌ TVs, computer monitors, batteries, light bulbs.
❌ broken glass or sharp components
Ali and Anne's collecting for charity
♻️ Award winning Ali and team of helpers collect diverse items not collected by the Council. Her mission: “Together we can make a better impact on our Planet”. Her definitive list of accepted items is HERE. Please note that this list changes often as various schemes start and end. Please bag items separately by type and drop into the wheelie bins in Mortimer Methodist church car park, first reading the sign inside the bin to double check your item(s) is/are really accepted.
♻️ In Mortimer, Anne Haines collects airline toileteries to make hospital admission bags. She also collects milk bottle tops for charity. Her address is available on request.
Council Waste & Recycling Strategy
♻️ The district council’s waste strategy sets out to cut waste, increase recycling and hit Net Zero emissions, for council activities, by 2030. There’s a look at this in an article in THIS newsletter.
questions and answers on waste and recycling
Q) Why is the council changing to a 3-week black bin collection?
A) Consultants/our staff recommend it as way to cut waste. West Berkshire is currently one of the 25 highest producers, placing it in the top 10% in the country. The consultant was appointed by the previous (Conservative) council administration as “technical advisors”..”to develop” a new waste strategy “using their knowledge and experience”…”within the waste management sector” (announced HERE). The current (Lib Dem) adminstration, elected in May 2023, continued to use them to work, alongside our staff. They put forward 3 ways to cutting non-recyclable waste ((page 38 HERE): reduce black bin collection interval to 3 weeks, reduce it to 4 or reduce bin size. Our portfolio lead for this area, Stuart Gourlay, concluded that only the first was a viable option. New bins would have cost about £1M and a 4-week collection cycle seemed a step too far.
Q) Who asked for the Net Zero emissions commitment?.
A) The council committed to reach Net Zero (emissions) as a council by 2030. Details HERE.
The next two questions were also raised with a senior waste officer at the Environment Advisory Group – a public forum that covers various environmental topics. You can watch that HERE or read the summary below.
Q) Won’t less frequent collections lead to overflowing bins, hygiene problems, unpleasant odours, and more pests through the accumulation of waste?
A) We don’t expect bins to overflow, given the black bin capacity, the weekly food waste collection and the offer of larger black bins for those with high occupancy or specific needs. If you think you won’t be able to cope, or find that you can’t when the change takes effect, you can apply for a bigger bin HERE.
Q) won’t the black bin collection change increase fly-tipping?
A) Of 3 council’s who made the change, two being East Devon and Bracknell, fly-tipping reduced, not increased, after the change, suggesting there is no link between it and bin collection rate. The council is working to improve, with the help of technology, the effectiveness of its tackling of flytipping offences. More about this on page 31 HERE.
Q) What evidence do you have that changing to 3-weekly black bin collection increases recycling rates?
A) The consultants’ modelling, described in the waste strategy HERE, confirms that other council areas that made this change saw a reduction in non recyclable waste going to landfill (ie black bin output). The council would not be going ahead otherwise.
Q) Surely the claimed £150,000 cost saving of the planned bin change is peanuts compared to the claimed benefit? I’d love to see the analysis that balanced the claimed saving against the possible impacts covered above.
A) The change is not being done to save money. It’s being done to try to cut waste. There is no “balancing” in that the council assumes the change will not increase costs, for the reasons given in the prior two answers.
Q) In your survey didn’t most people say they didn’t want the black bin collection change, so aren’t you ignoring them by introducing it?
A) The consultants/staff creating the survey didn’t think it reasonable to expect people to study their report, and come up with a view on whether the analysis was right. They settled instead for just inviting comment on whether people thought the plan would work. Most people expressed doubts. But we particularly wanted to know if people could cope with a change (to black bin collection) if it went ahead. here, most (52%) said that they could cope or could do with support.
Q) Did many people get to know about and do the survey
A) About 5000 people did it. Whilst we can always do better, by comparison about 700 engaged with a 2018 consultation run by the previous adminstration on the Green Bin ‘tax’. That particular one asked people “How far do you agree with the proposal to introduce an annual subscription for garden waste collections?” to which 87% disagreed but the tax still went ahead.
Q) Why not copy Reading Council’s collection process that has a fortnightly black bin collection?
A) Reading has smaller black bins than West Berks, so although they offer a 2-weekly collection, the weekly capacity is lower than ours. To replace our bins with the lower capacity ones like Reading (and presumably stay on a 2-week collection) would cost about £1M. They don’t currently collect glass bottles at the roadside.
Q) why can’t we put all the recycling on one container, rather than 3 (4 counting food) ?
A) Whilst “all in one” recycling lead to higher take up of recycling, because it’s easier, it brings more contamination which can reduce the amount actually recycled. Processing cost of “all in one” is higher too. The council thinks it would be good if the governent mandated a common approach for the country for recycling to reduce the confusion and mis-information that exists, for example when we talk to friends or relatives in other council areas. This council thinks is has the balance about right, in terms of separation versus number and size of containers, but it continues to review it and notes your comments about this in the survey.
Q) South Oxfordshire – who I’ve read that you are keen to link up with – seems to have a higher recycling rate than West Berks, yet achieves this on a 2-week black bin collection. How come/why don’t you do as they do?
A) The recycling rates of West Berkshire & South Oxfordshire cannot be directly compared because South Oxford only collects recycling, whereas West Berks collects and processes it. Weset Berkshire Council measures the end-to-end recycling level – which will invevitably be lower than the collection rate.
Q) Do the Green Party councillors support the waste strategy, and the black bin collection interval change?
A) Cllr Marsh has said he opposes it. Cllr Culver has called for the council to aim to make the whole district, not just council operations, achieve Net Zero emissions. The now-independent councillor Abbs voted against the strategy/bin change. He was interviewed in 2023 about the subject when he was the portfolio lead. That interview is HERE.
Page collated by Cllr Nick.