In one green box you can recycle:
- plastic bottles - includes any plastic container which is bottle shaped, including: milk bottles, fizzy drink and squash bottles, shampoo and conditioner bottles, empty bleach bottles, detergent bottles. We can take lids, spray triggers and pumps (these can be left on or removed)
- plastic pots, tubs, trays and punnets
- plastic plant pots (with the exception of black plastic pots, which cannot currently be recycled)
- tins and cans
- metal biscuit and sweet tins
- metal lids
- empty aerosols
- aluminium foil or containers (must be clean)
We cannot collect and recycle the following:
- hard plastics (such as plastic toys, clothes hangers and DVD cases)
- black plastics
- soft plastics / plastic film (such as carrier bags, bread bags, crisp packets, film lids from pots or trays, clingfilm, bubble wrap)
- pet / baby food pouches
- cartons (such as Tetra Pak)
Pots, tubs and trays are particularly light and can blow out of the recycling container if not careful. When putting out recycling containers for collection, residents should stack another one of their recycling containers on top of their box for plastics to prevent plastic from blowing away.
Why can't you recycle black plastics?
Black plastic is difficult to recycle because of the type of dye used in the manufacturing process to turn the plastic black.
The recycling process uses optical sorting lazers to organise the plastic into the different polymer types before washing, shredding and melting it down. The optical lazers cannot detect the black plastic because of its colour, meaning it is automatically removed and disposed of as contamination.
However, there are beginnings of new technologies being brought forward using new special dyes which can be detected by lasers as well as optical lazers being upgraded to detect black plastic.
If in doubt, leave it out of your recycling to reduce contamination.