What happens to your recycling and rubbish

Where your waste and recycling goes

Your waste and recycling is collected and taken to the state-of-the-art environmental hub in Middlewich for sorting.

Find out more about your waste and recycling by watching the following videos:

Transcript for the above video (PDF, 88.5KB)

How we compost your food and garden waste

From January 2024, you will need a subscription to our Garden Waste Recycling Scheme if you would like us to continue collecting your garden bin.

If you subscribe, you may choose to continue recycling your food waste by putting it in your garden bin.

If you have a subscription, we take your garden and food waste to our state-of-the-art composting plant in Leighton, near Crewe. The plant is operated by a contractor on behalf of Cheshire East Council.

Once the waste arrives at the site it is tipped off in a waste transfer hall and then loaded into special concrete tunnels for composting treatment.

We monitor the temperatures to make sure that they are high enough to kill any pathogens that could otherwise spread or lead to diseases.

The treated material is then placed in a maturation area for a few more weeks prior to being prepared for use in agriculture and horticulture.

Where your non-recyclable material goes

Energy from waste

The materials that cannot be recycled are processed at Energy from Waste facilities and used to create electricity which goes in to the National Grid.

Landfill site

Cheshire East has worked hard to divert waste from landfill. We currently send all kerbside collected residual waste to Energy from Waste facilities.

Contact Waste and Recycling

Call our Waste and Recycling Customer Service Team on 0300 123 5011 during office hours, 8.30am to 5pm Monday to Friday, if you're unable to use our form.

Page last reviewed: 29 April 2025