Brighton and Hove City Council has the most limited recycling scheme in Sussex. 

Plastic bottles only.

You'd be forgiven for assuming that Brighton must be one of the 'greenest' cities in the UK. Between 2011 and 2015 the council was led by the nation's first-ever Green Party administration, and the Greens had control of the council for a second time between 2020 and 2023. The UK's only Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas, has held a seat in the city for almost 14 years.

But the city's recycling policy appears to be the most limited in all of Sussex:

Information taken from council websites in February 2024. Adur and Worthing councils have a joint recycling policy.

This unflattering comparison to Brighton and Hove's neighbouring councils makes it clear the city is still seriously lagging behind in terms of what its residents can put in their recycling bins. 

The Brighton and Hove Food Partnership says that the city's limited recycling scheme means residents may be at a higher risk of engaging in 'wishful recycling', where people fill recycling bins with what they hope can be recycled, rather than what the council stipulates.

As the city is an outlier in terms of what it will and won't accept in recycling bins, people from the rest of Sussex, or other more recycling-friendly parts of the UK, may assume that they can recycle items like foil and ready-meal trays. 

If a recycling bin is found to contain more than about 25% non-permitted material, the entirety of the 'contaminated' contents may be sent to an incinerator or landfill. 

For many years, Brighton and Hove Council has made the argument that its limited recycling policy focuses exclusively on the materials that can be recycled in the UK. It says that other councils export their wider range of recyclable waste to other countries, where the material may end up in landfills or burned.

The council may be right to be cautious about where recyclable waste ends up: exporting recycling can be problematic, and it doesn't seem to be getting much better.

But this argument doesn't seem to be wholly accepted by Green Party Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas, who blames a 30-year-long contract with waste management company Veolia for the city's recycling woes.

It's been reported that the contract, apparently signed by a Labour council administration in 2003, leaves the council unable to compel Veolia to accept a wider variety of recyclable material. 

Speaking to The Argus last summer, Ms Lucas said: "Basically, they (Veolia) said they would need to upgrade the plant and that would cost them a lot of money - at the time, it would have cost £1 million but it would cost more than that now,"

Finding that kind of cash would be a serious challenge for a council facing a £31 million budget gap.

A beautiful day for recycling.

If you live in the city and want to recycle your plastic pots, foil and Tetra Pak cartons, the Magpie Recycling Cooperative offers curbside recycling collection for £2.30 a week. They claim everything they collect is recycled in the UK. Otherwise, you may have to wait until the Veolia contract expires in 2033.

I've contacted Brighton and Hove City Council and Veolia for comment and further details of the contact between them. I will publish responses here if I receive them.