There are plenty of reasons why it’s a good idea to recycle food waste, and in the warmer months there’s an extra motivating factor to get on board with recycling your leftovers.
Remember, the content of our food waste caddies gets collected every week, whilst our non-recyclable waste doesn’t. Do you really want food waste to be sitting in your bin for a couple of weeks and making everything a bit yucky?
See, if you don’t recycle your food waste your regular bins will undoubtedly start to get a bit stinky, and this becomes an even bigger (and smellier) problem across the summer.
Some people seem to think recycling food waste is unhygienic, whereas actually, recycling your food waste creates fewer smells and is much more hygienic than carelessly putting everything in the bin.
It’s much better, and less whiffy, to get on board with recycling food waste so we can collect it from you on a weekly basis.
Having said that, we know food caddies will sometimes need a bit of extra love during the summer, so here are a few tips to help keep your caddy in tip-top shape.
Tips to keep your food caddy fresh
- Empty the liner more frequently in warmer weather. Simply put, if it’s warm the contents of your food caddy will start to smell faster than they would in colder months. Try to empty it more regularly when it’s hot. Remember, containers are emptied on a weekly basis.
- Clean/disinfect the caddy regularly. Like any bin you own, your caddy will need a bit of TLC too. Try to clean it regularly, especially when it’s warm.
- Sprinkle some bicarbonate of soda in the bottom of the caddy. Bicarbonate soda is a great way to neutralise odours quickly, so if you have some sitting in your cupboard then you might want to dash a bit in the bottom of your caddy.
- Wipe up any drips straight away. Sometimes drips are unavoidable, but making sure you mop them up swiftly will help prevent any smells.
- Keep the kitchen caddy out of direct sunlight. Finding a cool place to store your caddy, away from any direct sunlight will be a big help.
- Keep the lid closed. Keeping the lid closed will keep flies away and stop smells from travelling around the room, so if you don’t already, try to get into the habit of closing the lid.
- Don’t overfill your liner. A common problem seems to be caddy liners splitting, and one of the best ways to prevent this from happening is to make sure you don’t overfill them.
- Take your kitchen caddy outside when transferring waste. Another useful tip is to carry your food waste outside in your kitchen caddy once you’re ready to transfer it to the bigger kerbside caddy. This helps to prevent splitting and spillages.
Hopefully you’re now on board and ready to recycle your food waste. Need a caddy and liners? No worries, you can get both for free.
Order a new caddy
We offer free replacement kitchen and kerbside caddies, so if you need one, don’t sweat it – you just need to order a new one.
You can request a new food caddy easily on our website, where you can also order new recycling boxes if you need them. We’ll get your new caddy out to you as quick as we can, but sometimes we can experience exceptionally high amounts of these orders, which may require you to wait for your delivery. If your caddy doesn’t arrive quickly, please try to be patient as we work our way through the backlog of orders.
We offer free caddy liners
You can get our free caddy liners by simply tying an empty liner to your caddy handle on your collection day and the recycling crew will leave you a new roll.

Or, if you prefer, you can collect the free caddy liners (as well as replacement blue sacks) at a variety of locations in Wrexham, including a number of convenience stores, estate offices, libraries and recycling centres.
“We need everyone to play their part”
Cllr Terry Evans, Lead Member for Environment, said: “We try to make it easy for residents to recycle food waste by offering free food caddies and free liners, providing them with everything they need to recycle at the kerbside. Although we know that many people are recycling food waste we also know that sadly there’s still a number of residents who choose not to recycle their food waste at all. We need everyone to play their part, so please make sure you take advantage of our weekly food recycling service.”
For more info on recycling in Wrexham, please visit wrexham.gov.uk/recycling
It’s (still) not too late to sign up for garden waste collections – Wrexham Council News