Where does my recycling go?
How is recycling collected?
How is recycling collected?
Overview
Recycling collection services vary across the country. The factors that influence these services include whether the area is urban or rural, the different types of housing and the facilities available to process your recycling.
Broadly there are three scheme types:
- ‘Kerbside sort’ schemes where recyclables are sorted into their respective materials on the lorry at the kerbside;
- ‘Two-stream’ where paper and card is collected in one compartment and the containers (cans, plastic bottles and glass bottles and jars) are collected in another compartment; and
- ‘Co-mingled’ collections where all your recyclables are put into one compartment on the lorry before being taken to a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) and sorted.
How is it recycled?
After the materials have been collected and sorted, they are sent for re-processing.
More information on how mixed recycling is sorted can be found in the materials recovery facility (MRF) video.
Once collected and sorted, recycled materials become valuable commodities in the worldwide market. There are many recycling factories here, reprocessing million of tonnes of material every year. For example:
- all of the newsprint used in the UK contains around 78% of recycled paper;
- all of the organic (garden and kitchen) waste we collect is recycled here, usually quite close to where it is collected; and
- we currently recycle 6 billion plastic bottles – that’s the same as each person in Britain recycling 99 bottles a year!
Environmental impact
Whilst recycled materials are valuable commodities in the worldwide market and are financially important; recycling is good for the environment too. It makes best use of our limited natural resources. Recycling is a real success story and we should be proud of what we have achieved as a nation – but there is still much more we can do
In 2008-09 over 27 million tonnes of household waste was collected by local authorities. Of this:
- 50% of this waste was sent to landfill;
- 37% was recycled or composted; and
- 12% was incinerated for energy recovery.
The amount of household waste we recycled in 2008 reached an impressive 8.7 million tonnes. That alone saved the same amount of CO2 that nearly a million return flights from London to Sydney would produce.
Problems and issues
The biggest problem is when incorrect items are put in the recycling container.
These items have to be removed; otherwise the quality of the recycling would be reduced – affecting the markets into which it can be sold.
The main issue faced by the paper re-processors is the lack of high quality material available. For many people, paper is often collected from your home with other recyclable items. Although these materials are later separated at a Materials Recovery Facility, the other items can sometimes affect the quality of the paper.
The materials collected for recycling vary from area to area; so although an item of packaging may state that it is recyclable, only put out for collection if your council has confirmed that they can accept it.
Enter your postcode into our Recycling Locator tool to find out what you can recycle at home
https://www.recyclenow.com/recycling-knowledge/how-is-it-recycled/collections
What happens at recycling centres?
What happens at recycling centres?
Overview
Councils use different methods of collecting your recycling. There are kerbside ‘sort’ schemes where recyclables are sorted into their respective materials on the lorry at the kerbside; and co-mingled collections where all your recyclables are put into one compartment on the lorry before being taken to a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) and sorted. This section is looking at co-mingled collections.
At the MRF, all the mixed recycling is sorted and separated into different types of materials by hand or machine (or both) before being sent to manufacturers who make it into new products. As the machinery, processes and the materials that each MRF can accept do vary, so the video explains the basic principal of the process.
Once materials have been sorted, recycled materials become valuable commodities in the worldwide market.
The process
- The recycling bin, box or sack is emptied into collection vehicle.
- The co-mingled materials are taken to a Material Recovery Facility and loaded onto conveyors.
- The sorting process begins with the removal of incorrect items such as crisp packets and plastics bags.
- A vibrating machines separates the cardboard and paper – different types of paper are sorted by hand and then baled.
- The remaining recyclables continue on another conveyor where steel cans are removed using magnets.
- Different types of plastic are identified and separated using optical scanners.
- A special kind of magnet called an eddy current is used to sort aluminium cans.
- Glass is the remaining material and this drops off the end of the conveyor into a large container (Note – not all MRF’s accept glass).
Once separated they are taken for reprocessing at specialist factories.
Problems and issues
The biggest problem is when incorrect items are put in the recycling container as they have to be removed by hand. This slows down the process and if these items are missed it can clog or damage the machinery and other equipment. This is why it is important to know which items you can and can’t recycle in your local area.
To find out what you can recycle at home check the recycling locator.
https://www.recyclenow.com/recycling-knowledge/how-is-it-recycled/recycling-centre
Food waste
Food waste
HOW IS FOOD WASTE RECYCLED?
The best thing that can happen to food is that it makes it to our plates and is enjoyed.
Avoiding throwing out food that could have been eaten will save you money and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However some food waste is inevitable – egg shells, banana skins and tea bags are never going to be on the menu.
Home composting is a great way to stop this sort of waste ending up in landfill, and our gardens will really thank us for it.
If you live in an area that has a local food waste recycling collection service, you can use this to dispose of anything you can’t eat, or compost at home. It can be recycled into a good quality soil improver or fertiliser and even generate electricity that can be fed back into the national grid. You can check whether your local authority offer a food waste collection service on our Recycling Locator.
Did you know?
- Around 7 million tonnes of food is thrown away by households in the UK every year, and most of it could have been eaten.
- Little by little all this waste adds up, over a year the average family throws away around £700 of food shopping – equivalent to an annual utility bill.
- Some of the waste is made up of things like peelings, cores and bones, but the majority is, or once was, perfectly good food.
- Most of it ends up in landfill sites where it rots and releases methane, a damaging green house gas. Throwing away food is also a huge waste of the energy, water and packaging used in its production, transportation and storage. If we all stopped wasting the food which could have been eaten, it would have the same CO2 impact as taking 1 in 4 cars off UK roads.
How is it recycled?
Many councils now collect food waste, which can be recycled in several ways including:
- In-vessel composting involves mixing food waste with garden waste – shredding it and then composting it in an enclosed systemfor around 2-4 weeks (temperatures of up to 70°C speed up the process and ensure any harmful microbes are killed off). The material is then left outside to mature for a further 1-3 months with regular turning and checks to ensure quality before going on to be used as soil conditioner.
- Anaerobic Digestion uses microorganisms to break down food waste, animal manure, slurries and energy crops in the absence of oxygen, inside an enclosed system. As it breaks down it gives off methane, which is collected and converted into biogas and used to generate electricity, heat or transport fuels. It also creates a nutrient-rich digestate that can be used as a fertiliser for agriculture and in land regeneration.
Environmental impact
Reducing food waste is a major issue and not just about good food going to waste; wasting food costs the average family with children almost £60 a month and has serious environmental implications too.
The amount of food we throw away is a waste of resources. Just think about all the energy, water and packaging used in food production, transportation and storage. This all goes to waste when we throw away perfectly good food.
Cheese is a good example – feeding and milking the cows, cooling and transporting the milk, processing it in to cheese, packing it, getting it to the shops, keeping it at the right temperature all the time. If it then gets thrown away it will most likely end up in a landfill site, where, rather than harmlessly decomposing as many people think, it rots and actually releases methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
Issues and solutions
- Don’t forget to make the most of your food and drink and try to avoid wasting food in the first place. For ideas, recipes and simple tips visit Love Food Hate Waste. You could also try to compost at home.
- A food waste caddy in your kitchen can help you to separate out your food waste for recycling and composting. This can be emptied into your compost bin or council food waste bin every couple of days.
- Your council may recommend that you line your food waste caddy with a liner or newspaper. Only use liners that are recommended by your council as some may not break down in the composting process.
- Where possible keep your bins out of direct sunlight and keep the bin lid closed.
https://www.recyclenow.com/recycling-knowledge/how-is-it-recycled/food-waste
Garden waste
Garden waste
Overview
When garden waste is recycled it is transformed into nutrient-rich soil conditioner. This can then be used in a range of different applications, such as for agriculture, land reclamation and as an ingredient in some multipurpose composts you can buy at a garden centre.
Most types of garden waste can be recycled, including bark, flowers, grass and hedge cuttings, leaves, plants, small branches, twigs and weeds. If you are unable to compost at home, you can take it to your local garden waste recycling point or put it into your garden waste collection scheme, if you have one, where it will then be taken to a central composting facility to be processed. Check with your council to see if you can recycle garden waste locally.
Did you know
- Garden waste makes up 14% of the average household bin (WRAP, 2002).
- Around 94% of local councils collect garden waste.
- Adding compost to soil increases the nutrients and improves the soil’s structure to help plants grow.
How is it recycled?
Garden waste collected at the kerbside is taken to a composting site where it is turned into a nutritious soil conditioner.
When the garden waste arrives at the composting site any material that is not compostable is removed, the remaining waste is then shredded and then laid out in a long pile to decompose, usually in the open air.
The process at a composting site is similar to that that takes place in home compost bin, but is actively managed to speed up the process. However, due to the amount of material the temperature reached is a lot higher than in a normal household compost bin. Temperature can reach up to 60°C. This higher temperature means that the enzymes and bacteria are quickly put to work resulting in finished compost in just a few weeks.
The material is turned frequently to provide much needed oxygen to micro organisms that help decompose the material. High temperatures kill off any harmful microbes, weeds and plant diseases.
The final part of the process involves screening the compost to remove any remaining contaminants and to grade the material for various end uses. Any compost that is still oversized or hasn’t decomposed enough, can then be put back through the process until it has composted down sufficiently.
The whole process takes between 8 and 16 weeks, depending on the final use for the compost.
Problems and issues
In 2008/9, a total of 5.1 million tonnes of material was composted or digested in the UK, of which approximately 90% was garden waste. Nearly ¾ of this material was composted at sites that operate to the national composting specification (PAS100), which controls the quality of the process and compost produced.
Although composting sites have measures to remove contamination, it is important that garden waste collected for composting is as clean as possible and that plastics and large stones are kept to a minimum, in order to ensure that a quality product can be made. It is also important that grass cuttings where herbicides have been used aren’t put in the recycling bin.
Open air windrow composting is generally used for garden waste materials only, and cannot accept catering or animal wastes (such as food from household kitchens). Garden wastes containing these other types of material have to be processed using methods such as in-vessel composting (IVC) or anaerobic digestion (AD) in order to comply with the Animal By-Products Regulations. Other methods are also available.
How is it used?
- Compost can be applied in a range of end uses, within full-scale agriculture, landscaping, gardens and brownfield sites.
- It can be used as a soil improver, mulch, topsoil constituent, turf dressing, and growing medium constituent.
https://www.recyclenow.com/recycling-knowledge/how-is-it-recycled/garden-waste
Cans
Cans
Overview
Many of the food and drink products we buy are packaged in cans made from either aluminium or steel and both of these materials can be recycled after we have finished with them to make either new cans or other products.
Did you know?
Recycling aluminium uses only around 5% of the energy and emissions needed to make it from the raw material bauxite. The metal can be recycled time and time again without loss of properties, so getting the aluminium recycling habit is one of the best things we can do for the environment.
Steel can also be recycled time and time again without loss of quality; by simply recycling our steel cans we can conserve non-renewable fossil fuels, reduce the consumption of energy and the emission of gasses like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
How is it recycled?
Aluminium cans
- Aluminium cans are shredded, removing any coloured coating.
- They are then melted in a huge furnace.
- The molten metal is poured into ingot casts to set. Each ingot can be made into around 1.5 million cans.
Aluminium foil is a different alloy and is usually recycled separately with other aluminium scraps to make cast items such as engine components, where it makes a big contribution to making vehicles lighter and more energy efficient.
Steel cans
- Steel cans are put into the furnace where molten iron is added.
- Oxygen is then blasted into the furnace which heats up to around 1700°C.
- The liquid metal is poured into a mould to form big slabs which are then rolled into coils.
- These coils are used to make all sorts of steel products such as bikes, cars, bridges, paperclips or even new food and drink cans.
Environmental impact
Aluminium
Aluminium is a resource that forms about 8% of the earth’s crust. It is mined and extracted from bauxite, which contains the compound alumina, in an energy-intensive electrolytic process. Four tonnes of bauxite contains two tonnes of alumina, which yields one tonne of valuable aluminium. The metal is used in buildings, transport and other industrial applications, as well as packaging.
Aluminium is the most cost-effective material to recycle, because of the huge energy savings – up to 95%. In addition, all the scraps left over from the aluminium production process can be melted down and used again and again. For this reason, recycling is part of the normal lifecycle for large industrial products – around 75% of all the aluminium ever made is still in circulation.
Recycling 1kg of aluminium saves up to:
- 6kg of bauxite
- 4kg of chemical products
- 14kWh of electricity.
Steel
Steel is made from one of the earth’s most common natural resources, iron ore, as well as limestone and coal. Mining for these raw materials and the production process involved in making steel have an environmental impact. Not only does the process require large amounts of energy but raw materials are wasted when mining, and the production process also produces waste and emissions.
Steel can be recycled time and time again without loss of quality, so by simply recycling our steel we can:
- conserve non-renewable fossil fuels
- reduce the consumption of energy
- reduce the amount of raw materials being wasted
- reduce the emission of gasses like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Problems and issues
Both aluminium and steel are easy to recycle and there are huge environmental benefits for doing this – yet many cans still go to landfill. If we recycle more cans we can reduce the amount of raw materials needed to produce new products.
Top tips
Remember to recycle drinks cans when away from home – at work, while travelling or at sports and leisure locations. If you can’t find a recycling bin, take it home and recycle it later.
Rinse out food cans with your leftover washing up water before the residue has chance to dry out – it will take much less effort!
Check the recycling locator to see what you can recycle in your area.
Made from recycled
Aluminium drinks cans are usually recycled into ingots at a special ‘closed-loop’ plant in Warrington. This is the ultimate recycling process for environmental efficiency and used cans are often recycled, made into new cans, filled and put back on the shelf in just six weeks.
Foil and other aluminium is generally recycled with other aluminium scraps such as window frames and road signs, and cast into engine components for vehicles, which makes them lighter and more fuel efficient.
Recycled steel can be found in incredibly diverse variety of products including:
- bicycle frames
- pipes
- train tracks
- ship hulls
- cars
- bridges
- paperclips
- food and drinks cans.
Steel can be infinitely recycled and because it is such a widely used material, the ranges of possible uses for it are endless.
https://www.recyclenow.com/recycling-knowledge/how-is-it-recycled/cans
Cartons
Cartons
Find out more about carton recycling
Electricals
Electricals
Overview
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations came into force in January 2007 and aim to reduce the amount of this waste going to landfill and improve recovery and recycling rates.
Around 1 million tonnes of electrical and electronic waste are generated every year.
So what items are included?
Items such as kitchen appliances, mobile phones, computers, TV’s, electrical and electronic tools can all be either recycled or reused.
Did you know?
- On average, each person in the UK buys almost three new electrical items each year – or around 170 million nationally.
- For every 5.9kg of small electricals purchased in 2012 (the average amount per person), only a fraction of these items (1.8kg) were sent to be recycled.
- There’s no need to bin items – you can drop them off at your local recycling centre. Enter your postcode into our Recycling Locator tool below to find your nearest recycling centre that accepts waste electricals.
- Recycling electricals is environmentally friendly – unwanted electricals and electronics can be re-used or recycled and contain really valuable raw materials. For example, one iron contains enough steel to produce 13 steel cans.
- Some retailers offer free recycling schemes or take back options. Ask your local retailer for more information.
How is it recycled?
Waste electrical and electronic equipment are collected at council recycling centres and at some retailers. It is then taken to a reprocessing plant where they are shredded into small pieces.
Once shredded:
- strong magnets remove ferrous metals, such as steel
- other non-metallic metals are removed by using electronic currents.
Plastic is sorted into types by using various methods such as:
- near infrared light
- density separation.
But my item is still in working order!
Items that are still in working order can be re-used. National charities such as British Heart Foundation collect electrical items, as do some of the smaller local charities. They welcome electrical items that are suitable for re-sale, as they can generate precious funding for their charity.
Environmental impact
Electrical items contain a range of materials that can be separated for recycling and used in new products, such as plastics and precious metals including gold and copper.
All this saves resources and energy.
If electrical items end up in landfill, hazardous substances will leak out and cause soil and water contamination – harming wildlife and even human health.
Problems and issues
A huge amount of electrical items are purchased each year and currently only a small proportion, particularly small items, are collected for recycling.
Many of us are not aware that items such as irons, toasters and mobile phones can be recycled. These items have a tendency to sit in a cupboard or drawer and gather dust, when in fact they could be put to better use. The biggest impact items we buy in the UK are televisions, washing machines, fridges and freezers, laptop computers and vacuum cleaners.
Facilities for recycling are improving and there are also charities and stores, such as the British Heart Foundation, who take useable, working items for re-use.
What waste electrical items can be turned into
Electrical items contain many different parts which, once recycled, can be used again in a variety of new applications. Below are examples of what some of the recycled parts may become:
Hover mowers contain:
- strong ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) plastic that can be used for light, rigid, moulded products such as musical instruments, cases, pipe fittings and car bumpers
- copper motors that can be turned into copper pipe, coins in some currencies, jewellery, wire, and as winding wire for motors in new electronic products such as fridges, vacuums, tools, toys and motors. Copper can be mixed with zinc to make brass, or with tin to make bronze.
Games consoles contain:
- steel that can be used for computer casings, car parts and beams
- circuit boards, which have a range of precious metals including gold, silver, platinum and palladium; platinum and palladium are used in catalytic convertors and mobile phones and jewellery.
Mobile phones contain:
- precious and semiprecious metals such as gold, platinum and palladium, a variety of which can be recycled into component plating and low voltage electrical contacts; palladium plays a key role in the technology used for fuel cells. Metal can be extracted from batteries too.
- zinc which is used to galvanise steel; it can also be mixed with copper to make brass. Ships and submarines use zinc blocks to stop rust forming.
- plastic which may be granulated and reformulated for use in mouldings.
- valuable components such as flash memory devices which can be recovered and downgraded.
- useful parts which can be re-used such as aerials, battery connectors, PCBs (printed circuit boards), connectors including gold-coated edge contacts on PCBs, ICs (integrated circuits), keyboards, LCD screens, lenses, microphones, phone housings, screws, SIM card assemblies and speakers.
Many manufacturers have signed up to the Basel Convention agreeing to cooperate with developing environmentally sound management to end-of-life mobile phones.
https://www.recyclenow.com/recycling-knowledge/how-is-it-recycled/electricals
Glass bottles
Glass bottles
Overview
Domestic waste glass (known as cullet) is easy to recycle. The UK currently recycles around 50% of container glass (like bottles and jars) and while this figure has doubled over the last five years it still lags behind other countries. For example, both Switzerland and Finland recycle more than 90% of their glass.
Glass can be collected in bottle banks or as part of your kerbside collection. However, there is still more we can all do, such as remembering to recycle our clear jars (pasta sauce jars and jam jars) which are often forgotten.
The UK business sector still has a lot of work to do to recycle glass – bars, restaurants and pubs currently throw away over 200,000 tonnes of glass every year into landfill.
How is it recycled?
Once glass is collected and taken to be reprocessed, it is:
- crushed and contaminants removed (mechanised colour sorting is usually undertaken at this stage if required)
- mixed with the raw materials to colour and/or enhance properties as necessary
- melted in a furnace
- moulded or blown into new bottles or jars.
Environmental impact
The production and use of glass has a number of environmental impacts.
New glass is made from four main ingredients: sand, soda ash, limestone and other additives for colour or special treatments. Although there is no shortage of these raw materials as yet, they all have to be quarried, which can damage the landscape, affect the environment and use more energy.
Glass is 100% recyclable and can be endlessly reprocessed with no loss of quality. Therefore by simply recycling our glass we can:
- conserve non-renewable fossil fuels
- reduce the emission of harmful gasses into the atmosphere.
Did you know?
- The addition of domestic waste glass (known as cullet) to a furnace in the glass manufacturing process, substantially reduces the energy requirement and decreases CO2 emissions. Each tonne of cullet added to the furnace saves 1.2 tonnes of raw materials – decreasing emissions still further.
- New glass takes a lot of energy to make, first in transporting the materials to the furnace and then to heat them to a high temperature. An efficient furnace burns 4 gigajoules (GJ) (unit of energy measuring heat) to melt every tonne of glass – that’s the energy equivalent of burning 250kg of wood.
Problems and issues
The main problem with glass recycling is the quality of the glass collected. It can be contaminated, and therefore difficult to use in glass containers again. Due to the relatively low value of the material and the required processing costs, much glass ends up in aggregate where there is no environmental benefit.
To try to counter, this a split target has been put in place to limit the amount of glass that doesn’t go through a remelt process.
Made from recycled
Recycled glass can be used to make a wide range of everyday products and some that are completely unexpected, including:
- new bottles and jars
- glass wool insulation for homes, which also helps with energy efficiency.
The different types of glass
We use many different types of glass in the UK, but at home we mostly use ‘soda-lime-silica’ glass for containers like bottles and jars. It is important not to mix up the different types of glass as they are re-processed differently.
Different types of glass include:
- borosilicate glass – used for heat-resistant cooking equipment like Pyrex
- lead glass – for sparkling decorative glassware
- glass fibre – for insulation and fibre optic cable.
These different types of glass are not widely recycled so do not add these into your kerbside collection container or bottle banks at the recycling centre.
Colour and quality
During the glass manufacturing process, extra raw materials can be added to give the glass a particular colour or special qualities.
The extra raw materials that can be added are:
- iron for a brown or green colour
- cobalt for blue
- alumina for durability
- boron to improve resistance to heat or cold.
https://www.recyclenow.com/recycling-knowledge/how-is-it-recycled/glass
Paper
Paper
Find out more about paper recycling
Everything you need to know about recycling plastics
Everything you need to know about recycling plastics
Plastic is one of the most popular and useful materials of modern times: we now use about 20 times more plastic than we did 50 years ago. Its popularity and widespread use is why handling it responsibly and correctly once it becomes waste is so vitally important. We can optimise the lifespan of plastics by re-using and recycling items as many times as possible.
Did you know?
- 99% of all UK local authorities now offer collection facilities for plastic bottles either through your household recycling collection or at recycling centres.
What about other plastics?
Mixed plastics packaging (trays, tubs, pots, films etc) can also be mechanically recycled, and it is both economically and environmentally effective to do so. Infrastructure for the collection, sorting and reprocessing of these valuable resources has increased in the UK in recent years.
Currently, 79% of councils collect other rigid plastic packaging such as pots, tubs and trays in household recycling collections.
Enter your postcode into Recycling Locator tool to find out which plastics your council collects.
How is it recycled?
Plastics are:
- Sorted by polymer type
- Shredded
- Washed
- Melted
- Pelletised
- Made into new products.
It is a two-stage process:
- Sorting is mainly done automatically with a manual sort to ensure all contaminants have been removed
- Once sorted and cleaned, plastic can either be shredded into flakes or melt processed to form pellets before finally being moulded into new products.
Environmental impact
Plastic is a popular and highly versitile material, and we use a lot of it. Optimising the lifespan of plastics by re-using and recycling items as many times as possible, for example, by recycling used plastic bottles into new ones, we can therefore reduce our need to create new plastic.
This means we can:
- conserve non-renewable fossil fuels (oil)
- reduce the consumption of energy used in the production of new plastic
- reduce the amount of solid waste going to landfill
- reduce emission of gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Problems and issues
There are many different types of plastic in use, some of which we can recycle in the UK and other types – including that used to make flexible pouches and black microwaveable trays – which will require new technology before we are able to recycle it effectively. This means that some plastic still goes to landfill, some is incinerated and some shipped abroad for recycling.
There are currently large investments being made in Britain to help our domestic plastic recycling sector cope with the variety of plastics in use and it won’t be long before we operate a more efficient recycling system for all different types of plastic packaging.
In the meantime we can all do our bit to improve things now. Recycling plastic bottles is one easy way to help. They are usually made from two easily recyclable plastics – PET and HDPE – and can be recycled by most of us via our household recycling collections or local recycling centres.
Made from recycled
There is a wide range of products made from recycled plastic including:
- refuse sacks and carrier bags
- underground drainage systems for homes and national infrastructure
- flower pots, seed trays, watering cans and water butts
- wheel arch liners and bumpers on cars
- damp proof membranes, guttering and window profiles used in construction
- reusable crates and pallets
- wheel bins and food caddies
- composters and wormeries
- drinks bottles and food trays
- polyester fabric for clothing.
The different types of plastic
You may notice symbols on plastic packaging explaining the type of plastic they’re made of and how to recycle them. Read Packaging symbols explained for more information.
You may have seen an increase in businesses moving to different types of plastic packaging, but knowing your bio-plastics from your biodegradable plastics can be very confusing.
Plastic can be made from fossil-based or bio-based materials. Both can be used to make highly durable, non-biogradable plastics, or plastics which either biodegrade or compost.
Fact: Just because a plastic is made from bio-based sources, does not automatically mean it will biodegrade!
Only non-biodegradable plastic can be recycled, regardless of whether it is fossil-based or bio-based. Enter your postcode into our Recycling Locator tool to find out which plastics your council collects.
Compostable plastics can be composted at industrial scale composting facilities, so you can put these in with your green waste but only if it goes to one of these facilities – your council will be able to tell you where your green waste goes.
Some compostable plastics can also be home composted and should be clearly labelled if this is the case. Compostable plastics should not go in with your dry recycling as they cannot be recycled in the same way as non-biodegradable plastic.
Biodegradable plastics also cannot be recycled in the same way as non-biodegradable plastics. Some can be composted, but not all, and should be clearly labelled if this is the case.
Biodegradable packaging should be clearly labelled as such, and should not go in with your dry recycling.
Find out more about plastics recycling
- More information on how to recycle different items made from plastic
- Enter your postcode into our Recycling Locator tool to find out which types of plastic can go in your home recycling
https://www.recyclenow.com/recycling-knowledge/how-is-it-recycled/plastics