Recycling plastic

Which container?

Please put all plastic recycling in the same red box or bin as your cans, tins and foil.

Which plastics can I recycle?

With lots of different symbols on plastic packaging, it can be confusing to understand what can and can’t be recycled. Please refer to our plastic recycling guide below to help you out.

Yes please...

• Plastic drinks bottles and lids
• Meat/fish trays (including black plastic!)
• Yoghurt pots
• Plastic tubs (e.g. sweet tubs)
• Fruit punnets
• Household cleaning bottles (including bleach bottles and trigger sprays)
• Bathroom plastics (e.g roll on deodorants, mouthwash bottles, shampoo and shower gel bottles - including black plastic)
• Hand soap bottles
• Taupe grey coloured plant pots

Guide to which types of plastic can be recycled in the red box (PDF Document, 0.36 Mb)

No thanks...

• Tetra Paks / cartons
• Plastic plant pots (except for taupe grey plant pots)
• Film bags / film
• Crisp packets or chocolate and biscuit wrappers
• Pet food pouches
• Rigid/hard plastic such as clothes hangers and stationery (e.g. pens and correction tape / fluid)
• Food remains on any recyclable items
• Large plastic containers over 5 litres
• Dental items such as toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes.

Please visit our Recycling A-Z for advice on how to recycle the items above.

If you have extra recycling that won't fit in the red box please request another container. Please do not leave recycling in plastic carrier bags or black bin bags for health & safety, and operational reasons.

Don't forget to squeeze and squash the plastics to get more in your existing containers, and don't forgot to fasten the lid on the red box to prevent recyclables escaping. You can request a lid for your red box(es).

Where does it go?

Find out what happens to your plastic and what it is recycled into.

What you can do to help

Keep it clean!

You can really help by cleaning your plastics before putting them in the red box.

Food contamination on things like yoghurt pots and rigid food containers means the plastic isn't of a high enough quality for us to get the best prices, from this income we invest back into the services provided by the council.

Carrier bags

Plastic carrier bags are not accepted for recycling. This is because none of the recycling companies who buy our plastic want to buy plastic bags as they have little or no value and affect the sorting process. Find out how plastic bags cause problems during our recycling process.

Many large supermarkets now have plastic bag recycling points available - ask at your local store. Most supermarkets that do home deliveries will also take away your carrier bags.

Large plastic containers over 5 litres

Unfortunately we are not able to accept large plastic containers over 5 litres in the red box. This is due to the way we process plastics, tins and cans into three separate material streams using magnets and conveyor belts. We separate them as when we sell the recycling it is worth more money. Large bulky plastic items cause blockages, as they are too large to go through the sorting process. This causes the separation machinery to automatically shut down, so the blockage can be cleared, but this loses valuable time. Below explains how the separation process works.