Around this time of year, and on the run up to Christmas, we often experience severe weather, which can sometimes disrupt our waste and recycling services. This is why we wanted to remind you about the Chichester District Council mobile app. 

Thousands of our residents are already benefitting from the app, which provides residents with personalised updates and notifications on their waste and recycling collections, when they switch their notifications on. This means that we can let you know if our crews are running late, and it allows us to notify you of planned changes to collections – such as any changes to collection dates over the Christmas period.

The app also allows you to view your personalised waste and recycling dates and provides recycling advice and helps you to identify which items should go in which bins.

We’ve received great feedback from those using it because it enables us to keep you well informed if our crews have any issues on the roads, or if severe weather is preventing us from reaching you, and it provides excellent reminders and information. The app allows you to complete ‘Report It’ forms for issues such as street cleaning and fly tipping, or even to request a new bin. You can also view local food hygiene ratings for restaurants and cafes – which will be especially useful over the festive period. It also allows you to find your nearest facilities, such as recycling centres, car parks and public toilets. In order to access this, all you need to do is visit either the Apple app store or the Google Play store and search for the Chichester District Council app. You can also find out more about this at:www.chichester.gov.uk/chichesterdcapp 

While talking about recycling, I also want to remind you about some of the additional recycling services that we offer. We’ve partnered with Podback to provide a free collection service to recycle your coffee pods. It’s really simple to use: you sign up and order your free kerbside recycling bags on the Podback website www.podback.org; they will then send you two rolls of bags and an instruction leaflet; when at least one of your bags is full you book your free collection on our website at:www.chichester.gov.uk/podback; and then on your booked collection day you leave your bag(s) out at your normal collection point by 6am and our team will collect it.

We are currently operating this service on a trial basis to around 75% of household in the district. As part of this service, we are also offering collections of textiles and small electricals. We have a long list of items we can collect on our website, where you can also book your collection date:www.chichester.gov.uk/textileandelectricalrecycling. Both of these services are designed to make recycling at home even easier and have been really popular. We are looking at options later this year to see if this is something that can be rolled out to the whole district.

I also want to let you know that we have teamed up with St Wilfrid’s Hospice once again this year to promote their Christmas Tree Recycling Scheme. If you sign up to the scheme, St Wilfrid’s volunteers will collect your real Christmas tree and recycle it for you in January 2025, in a return for a donation to the hospice. Collection dates will be 10-13 January 2025 and bookings close on 6 January. Postcodes that they are covering are: PO18, PO19, PO20, PO21, PO22, PO10, GU29, GU28, BN18, and the suggested donation is £15 per tree.  You can find out more at: www.stwh.co.uk

Best Wishes

Cllr Mark Chilton

Cabinet Member for Finance, Corporate Services and Chichester Contract Services at Chichester District Council