Recycling FAQs

The council is always looking for ways to recycle more materials, however please be careful to only recycle the items requested.

Materials put in the orange sacks or recycling banks which are not currently accepted for recycling are called contaminants. Contaminants can render recyclable materials unsuitable for recycling and cause damage to equipment at the recycling facility where materials are sorted.

For example, food waste makes recycling unpleasant to collect and sort, and damages paper so it cannot be recycled. Textiles can wind around equipment at the recycling facility, damaging it.

If the collection crew realise orange sacks are contaminated they may leave them where you set them out rather than collecting them. If the crew sees contaminants in a recycling bank they may send it for rubbish disposal rather than recycling. This is because a contaminated bank could compromise a much bigger load when the recycling vehicle adds it to the rest of the clean recycling it collects. 

Here are some common materials that cannot be recycled using the orange sacks or banks and reasons why:

• Food waste (including any materials that are contaminated by food waste e.g. unrinsed soup cartons, very greasy pizza boxes). 
• Garden and plant trimmings. 
• Polystyrene, carrier bags, films, and plastic containers that are not food packaging bottles, pots, tubs or trays. 
• Lids of plastic bottles and glass bottles and jars. 
• Aluminium foil, milk bottle tops or yoghurt pot lids. 
• Textiles and shoes. 
• Broken glass. 
• Non-bottle or jar glass. 
• Paper-based ice cream tubs, disposable coffee cups and containers such as Pringle pots.
• Shredded paper.