Skip to main content

RCT Celebrates New Year Recycling Increase!

Rhondda Cynon Taf Council is celebrating its latest recycling figures - after it hit over 70% for THREE whole months – it then hit a remarkable 80% over Christmas and the New Year!

The latest success is thanks to the amazing recycling efforts of each and every resident across the County Borough – who broke all the recycling records by making it the GREENEST Christmas EVER and recycling a record breaking 80% of all their waste during the week-commencing 30th December!

These continued results highlight that the Bins to Bags standardisation has been a huge success and will ensure that we are on track to avoid Welsh Government fines of around £500,000. This achievement underscores the importance of these changes and the collective extra efforts of our community.

Councillor Ann Crimmings, Rhondda Cynon Taf Council's Cabinet Member for Environment and Leisure said: 

“The GREENEST Christmas EVER! Record breaking results, what an amazing way to start the New Year and take us in to 2025!

“This is a remarkable stride towards a sustainable future, I’m pleased to announce the successful move from wheelie bin collections to black bag waste collections in Cynon and Taf has led to a significant increase in food waste recycling figures with over 100 extra tonnes of food being put into food caddies instead of black bags. Over 97% of our community have embraced it and we are now seeing unprecedented achievements in all our recycling rates across all areas.

“In addition to this black bag waste has almost halved from 604 tonnes in the first week of January 2024 to 345 tonnes in January 2025!

“On behalf of the Council and Cabinet Members I would like to offer a heartfelt Thank You to our community. THANK YOU to the residents of Rhondda Cynon Taf for your overwhelming support.

“I’m sure that, together we can keep up the great effort and ensure that we keep hitting and smashing any target set by the Welsh Government!”

The Council’s crews have worked hard over the festive period to collect all the extra recycling, with over 228,000 collections taking place over the busy Christmas fortnight, including 152,000 black bag collections. Over 4300 real Christmas trees have been successfully collected, recycled and some have even been turned into wood chip to be used in local parks across RCT.

Compared to the same time period in 2023, the results for 2024 have been incredible and are only set to get even better in 2025:

  • Thousands of wheelie bins have been removed from footways.
  • Over 1500 wheelie bins have been permanently collected from households thanks to the wheelie bin take back scheme and 589 large bins (240L) have been swapped to smaller bins (120L) for storage.
  • Black bag waste is down by 15.9%
  • General recycling is up by 3.4%.
  • Food waste recycling has increased by 10.9%.
  • Nappy recycling has risen by 8.2%.

Over the last two months the teams have been very busy, delivering to almost 7,000 residents that have requested additional recycling services:

This includes:

  • 4584 food waste caddies/bins

Since the standardisation of waste collections (October to December 2024), there has been an 17% increase in food waste and a 36% decrease in black bag waste collected!

Recycling in Rhondda Cynon Taf is now SO EASY! Our weekly and unlimited recycling services means less waste and smells in your black bags, making recycling an EASY part of everyday life.

Recycling bags can be collected from hundreds of locations across the County Borough, residents can find their nearest at www.rctcbc.gov.uk/Bags

You can sign up to food waste, green waste and nappy recycling online at www.rctcbc.gov.uk/RecyclingSignUp.

In addition to this, ALL Community Recycling Centres are open 7 days a week from 8.30am - 4.30pm (November to March) and 8.30am - 6.30pm (March-October), find your nearest at www.rctcbc.gov.uk/CRCs.   

For more information on recycling follow us on Facebook and X or visit www.rctcbc.gov.uk/recycling.

Posted on 27/01/2025