Recycling Services

We are a professional, responsive and accredited company, providing comprehensive competitively-priced recycling services in the Greater Manchester and surrounding region.

We handle a huge range of materials and items, including: All grades of paper, Paper cups (PE lined not ‘compostable’), Cardboard, Aluminium and steel cans and other metal items, Plastic bottles, Polythene, Polystyrene, Glass, ICT equipment, WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), Cable, Hazardous waste (fridges, CRT monitors, lightbulbs, fluorescent tubes, batteries, TFT monitors, UPS), Furniture, Toner cartridges (ask us as not all are recyclable or reusable), Wood (grade A to C – plywood, chipboard, pallets, fencing, construction timber, off-cuts, scaffolding boards, crates), Food waste, Textiles and shoes (must be clean and dry, shoes paired).

If the materials or items you wish to recycle are not included above, please get in touch with our dedicated customer care team, as the list is not exhaustive and we may still be able to help you.

Confidential Shredding

We offer a comprehensive, fully GDPR-compliant confidential document shredding service; carried out on our secure specialist site and destroyed within one working day of collection. We can also provide secure, robust lockable cabinets and containers for you to place your confidential papers in within your premises prior to collection.

Office and On-Site Collections

From a one-off removal when you’re having a clear-out, through to daily pick-up, we offer a flexible office waste collection service from inside your premises.

External Bin Collections

We offer paper, cardboard, and residual waste collections from external 1100L bins at an agreed frequency. We also have extensive experience of waste management for a variety of events, including the recycling provision for major festivals.

Schools Recycling

We currently work with a number of schools, further education and higher education institutions, and are accustomed to tailoring our services to the specific needs of academia, including the provision of DBS checked drivers.

WEEE and Hazardous Waste Recycling

Working with specialist reprocessing partners, we can recycle ICT devices, electrical and electronic appliances, small electrical equipment and digital media as well as hazardous items like batteries, fluorescent light tubes. All data-bearing devices are securely destroyed in compliance with GDPR legislation.

Wood Recycling

Working in partnership with our reclaimed timber operation, Touch Wood, we offer a competitively-priced waste wood collection service as well as a wood workshop where a team of staff and volunteers processes discarded wood ready for sale to the public, as well as creating new items, from chopping boards to furniture. We can also make bespoke pieces to order.

Drop-offs to the EMERGE site

As well as our collection service, we accept drop-offs of items and materials to our site including, paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, IT equipment, polythene, cable, aluminium and steel cans and toner cartridges. We can also accept WEEE items by prior arrangement.

Daily Takeaway Kerbside Service

With office space at a premium in Manchester city centre, our‘pay-as-you-throw’ kerbside collection service for recycling and general waste is perfectly suited to businesses who have little room to accommodate their materials for disposal. No long-term commitment is required.

Recycling FAQs

If you have a question, please have a look through our FAQs to see if we have already answered it! If not, do not hesitate to get in touch! We will always try to help however we can.

EMERGE Recycling is a licensed waste carrier, registered with the Environment Agency, and holds several waste operation permits. EMERGE is a Registered Treatment Facility for WEEE and holds a T11 Exemption. To see our documentation, please click below.

Operating from our secure site in Openshaw, we have over 20 years’ experience supplying waste management services and recycling to a wide variety of customers, including businesses, schools, charities, the NHS and local government. EMERGE Recycling is fully accredited with ISO 9001: 2015, BS EN 15713, SafeContractor and an OTC operator licence. To find out more about our documentation, please click ‘Learn More’.

If you have any questions, or you just need some advice on waste reduction, re-use and recycling in Manchester, we’ll do our very best to help. Please see our Contact page for ways to get in touch.

Our relationship with our customers

EMERGE Recycling is reliable, responsible, friendly and flexible and very responsive to our customers’ needs.

The world of recycling can be daunting and is often bound by strict legislation. We will advise you if we can, and if we can’t, we’ll point you in the direction of someone who can. We care about our customers and will strive to do what’s right; always putting people and the planet before profit.

“We’ve used several of the well-known waste disposal companies, but it quickly became apparent, after the first couple of collections, that EMERGE’s service goes above and beyond their competitors.”

Anthony Devine, Founder, Ministry of Furniture

Our Green Credentials

EMERGE really is a down-to-earth enterprise, in every sense of the phrase. Wherever feasible, we strive to use modern technologies to limit our carbon footprint; from our vehicles to our plant equipment, and, wherever possible, we send materials to reprocessors as close to Manchester as we can, in order to keep both costs and fuel emissions low.

We pride ourselves in practicing what we preach; reducing, reusing and recycling everything within our own operations, and carrying out 3Rs and real recycling awareness training for our own personnel. EMERGE’s company policy is to buy recycled items, such as stationery, wherever we can (thereby supporting the recycling industry). We reuse paper and other resources for as long as possible. We strive to minimise waste and keep consumption low for things like water and energy. Wherever feasible, we limit our use of toxic products and actively control any pollutants that the company creates.

Social Impact

In addition to our environmental focus, EMERGE Recycling is also an award-winning social enterprise, with our profits contributing to our parent charity, EMERGE 3Rs. We are highly invested in our local community; providing employment, training and volunteering opportunities for local people.