About Love Essex

Love Essex aims

Love Essex is the official website of the Essex Waste Partnership. The partnership is made up of the 12 district, city and borough councils in Essex and Essex County Council working together to ensure cost-efficient and sustainable waste management across the county. 

Find out more about Essex Waste Partnership

Through the Love Essex brand, we aim to inspire Essex residents to reduce the amount of waste they throw away, reuse and repair items more and increase the amount of waste recycled. We also work to reduce environmental crimes such as littering and fly-tipping, in a bid to make Essex a cleaner and greener place to live.

Together, we want to help make Essex a great place to grow, live and work by protecting the environment. At the moment, roughly 50% of household waste in Essex is recycled. This is above the national average of 45%, but we still want to do better. The best thing we can do for the environment is to reduce the amount of waste we create in the first place. We can do this by only buying what we need and making the most of what we already have.

We have committed to reuse, recycle, or compost 65% of waste by 2035. Together, we can do more by opting for preloved and reusable items, and making sure we recycle everything we can.

Love Essex objectives

Through a number of campaigns aimed to support residents to reduce waste and recycle more, Love Essex follows the waste hierarchy principles. The waste hierarchy ranks waste management options based on what is better for the environment. The best thing we can do is to prevent the amount of waste being created in the first place. The worst thing for the environment is disposal, for example sending waste to landfill. 

Love Essex ideas and initiatives encourage residents to:

  • avoid waste by opting for reusable items in place of single-use products
  • reuse items by purchasing or donating preloved items 
  • recycle as much as they can through kerbside collections or at the recycling centres
  • only throw away items that cannot be passed on or recycled

Love Essex ideas and initiatives 

There are plenty of Love Essex campaigns that help support residents to reduce their waste. Some of our key campaigns include food waste, cloth nappies and home composting. We also have projects aimed at reducing avoidable single-use items, littering and fly-tipping. 

Find out more about current campaigns and projects