Mid Ulster District Council Website

Recycle Week 2026: Mid Ulster joins the call to rescue your recyclables 

Mid Ulster District Council is again proud to support Recycle Week 2026 (14-20 September).
 
Inspiring action since 2004, Recycle Week is the nation’s biggest annual celebration of recycling, delivered by Recycle Now.
 
This year, Recycle Week is showing people how their recycling truly makes a difference, and that it’s worth doing properly. 
 
Each year, billions of items that could be recycled are put in the wrong bins around the UK.  Each item that is recycled correctly helps save energy and keeps valuable materials in circulation to be used again and again.
 
To help bring this to life, the Recycle Week campaign stars a cast of recyclable characters, whose stories show how valuable they are, and why they’re worth rescuing from the rubbish. The lineup includes:

• Shampers the shampoo bottle – who can be recycled into a plastic garden chair

• Spritz the perfume bottle – who could come back as a champagne bottle 

• Rolly the toilet roll tube – who can be turned into a notebook 

• Deo the aerosol – who could become part of a bike

• Trigger the cleaning spray bottle – who can be recycled again into a new spray bottle

• Yogi the yoghurt pot – who can come back as another yoghurt pot

• Ally the kitchen foil – who can be recycled into part of a car engine 

Mid Ulster District Council is taking part in Recycle Week to help our community have maximum impact. Mid Ulster is consistently one of the leading councils in terms of recycling, but we need to remember to rescue the forgotten items that are most commonly binned in black bins across the district.
 
We can all 'Recycle Right' by following these five top tips.

1. Make sure all the items for your blue bin are clean and dry before recycling them.

2. Replace lids and tops on your plastic bottles and glass bottles/jars. If they stay on the container, they will get recycled.

3. Remember to remove triggers from spray bottles and pumps from hand soap containers, as these can’t be recycled. Put the empty container without the trigger or pump in your blue bin.

4. Don’t forget to recycle items from all rooms in the house such as shampoo bottles and toilet roll tubes from the bathroom and magazines from the living room.

5. Remember to use your kitchen caddy to help with recycling your food waste. Food waste can be placed loose in your brown bin or biodegradable bags can be used to collect your food. You can also wrap it in a sheet of newspaper or kitchen roll before putting it in your brown bin.

Chair of the Council, Councillor Deirdre Varsani, is encouraging residents to continue with their fantastic recycling efforts this recycle week and every week.

The consistently high recycling rates across Mid Ulster are proof of the excellent efforts made by our residents across the district. From householders to schools, businesses, sports clubs and community groups, these collective efforts are helping Mid Ulster remain the top recycling council here. Recycling is an essential step in looking after our environment by conserving natural resources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while also ensuring valuable materials can be used time and time again. By recycling together and rescuing the items currently being missed in our blue bins we can make recycling even better!

Catherine David, CEO, WRAP added, “Recycling is one of the easiest ways we can all help to divert millions of tonnes of waste from landfill and incineration, conserve scarce natural resources and cut carbon emissions. Each year millions of shampoo bottles, aluminium foil and other recycling are binned when they could be recycled, so this Recycle Week we're asking people to be a hero at home and rescue more recycling. Together with local authorities and communities, we’re making it easier to keep these valuable materials in use and give our recycling a second life.” 
 
To find out more about Recycle Week this year, visit: www.recyclenow.com/recycle-week-2026.