Rochford District Council and the Love Essex team launched a new public campaign in Rayleigh on 5 January 2026 to help residents recycle more accurately and reduce waste. The push follows the introduction of a separate weekly food waste collection in October 2025, which changed how the district handles organic waste.
As part of the campaign, households in Rayleigh are receiving revised ‘What Goes Where’ guides and doorstep/bin stickers explaining what can be recycled and composted. The council is also encouraging people to use a new online search tool, the ‘Waste Wizard’, on the Rochford District Council website to check where specific items should go.
Local leaders say the extra help is needed because non-compostable plastics — including carrier bags, black sacks and bin liners — are still ending up in food waste caddies. Recent audits found about a 12% contamination rate in food waste bins, which makes it harder to process the material into renewable energy at anaerobic digestion facilities.
The Essex Waste Partnership and Rochford District Council aim to stop sending waste to landfill by the end of 2026. To reach that goal, the campaign focuses on improving the purity of the materials collected from homes before they are sent for processing.
Residents can find more information about collection days, the revised guides and online tools on the council’s bins and collections page. The council plans to review the success of the campaign at the end of the 2025/26 financial year in March 2026 to assess whether recycling habits have improved.
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