Rubbish: everyone’s business
Did you know that if you put non-recyclable rubbish into recycling bins it will contaminate the rest of the recycling? Just a few wrong items, such as toothpaste tubes and broken drinking glasses, can end up spoiling whole lorry loads of recycling, meaning that none of it can be recycled. It then ends up in landfill, harming the environment and increasing collection costs.
According to Recycle Now, the biggest contaminator is drinking glasses, with a third (33%) of UK households mistakenly adding these to their recycling. Closely followed by foil pouches (29%) and toothpaste tubes (26%).
UK top five contaminants:
- Drinking glasses (33%)
- Foil pouches (29%)
- Toothpaste tubes (26%)
- Plastic film lids (24%)
- Tissues & Paper towels (22%)
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To take the mystery out of what can and can’t be recycled, Recycle Now have developed a recycle locater tool which lets you know what can be recycled where you live. Just type in your postcode and the handy tool will tell you what you can and can’t put in your bins.
To find out more go to the Recycling Locator by clicking the button below.
Understanding recycling symbols
Most items that can be recycled have a label that tells you the best way to recycle it.
Recycle
This label is applied to packaging collected by 75% or more of UK local authorities and then sorted, processed and recycled into new packaging or products.
Don't recycle
This label is applied to packaging collected by less than 50% of UK local authorities and/or is not able to be sorted, processed and recycled into new packaging or products.
Recycle | Rinse
Rinsing recyclable packaging, like yoghurt pots and soup tins, ensures that any food or product residue doesn’t contaminate other materials, particularly if they are collected together with paper.
Recycle | Rinse | Lid on
Caps and lids under 40mm in diameter are too small to be captured for recycling, they fall through the holes in the screens at the sorting facilty. If you see this label, putting the lid back on the bottle packaging will help it to be captured and recycled.
Recycle with bags at large supermarkets | Don't recycle at home
You can see this label on plastic wrapping such as bread bags, fruit and veg bags, crisp packets and chocolate wrappers. You can recycle this type of packaging at recycling points in selected supermarkets.
Recycle | Bottle Cap on | Don't Recycle | Remove Sleeve
Some packaging components need separating before you dispose of them. You may see a label like this on packaging where a sleeve, film or liner can be easily removed from the main packaging item. In this case, the sleeve is removed from a bottle by pulling a perforated strip, the bottle can be recycled but the sleeve goes in the rubbish.