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Recycling waste

Plastic Recycling

Plastic recycling symbols

At the moment most recycling schemes in the UK only accept plastic bottles for recycling.  This is due to the type of plastic containers are made out of.

As you may have noticed, some plastic containers carry 'recycling' symbols.  These are actually identification codes for the different types of plastics that are used to make anything from your garden chair, to the bottle your milk comes in.  The image below shows the 'Polymer ID codes' you might find on plastic containers.



These symbols do notnecessarily mean that this plastic can be recycled.  The more honest manufacturers add a statement along the lines of "where facilities and markets exist".

What plastics do we collect?

We only collect plastic bottles.  These can be put in your orange sacks for collection.

The majority of plastc bottles are made from Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) or High Density Polyethylene (HDPE).  These are two kinds of plastics that manufacturers want to recycling, mainly because the quality of the plastic is not degraded by the recycling process, and only a small amount of new plastic has to be added to make the recycled plastic viable.

Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET)

PET bottles can be recycled into loads of different products, including fibre for sleeping bags and anoraks, new packaging and wall and floor coverings.

A new development in the use of recycled PET is the making of fleece clothing such as hats or jumpers.  It takes about 25 bottles to make 1 fleece jacket!

High Density Polyethylene (HDPE)

HDPE bottles can be recycled into fences, park benches and signposts.  It can also be made into bottles and recycled again and again.

Plastic recycling in the future

When manufacturers develop products that can be made from other types of plastic, we will start to collect them for recycling - such as Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE), Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) and Polystyrene (PS).

At the moment no manufacturers want to recycle these other types of plastic.  When this changes we will let everyone know.

Times Of Use: If your nearest recycling site is located near to housing, please consider the residents and only place material in the bins from Mon-Fri 8:00am to 8:00pm and weekends from 10:00am to 8:00pm. Dumping 100 empty wine bottles after a wild party at 3.00am may not be appreciated by all!

Dumping Of Rubbish: Please do not leave any rubbish, other than recyclables, at these sites, and put any carriers or containers used to transport material in the litter bins provided.

Nasty Odours: We would be very grateful if you could wash out any food tins and jars before depositing them, to prevent horrible odours!

Separation Of Material: Only put recyclable materials into the correct corresponding bin. If recycling material becomes mixed up in one bank, we will have to reject the entire contents, which rather defeats the point!

If you visit any of these sites and you see a problem e.g. an overflowing paper bank, please tell us so that we can fix the problem. You can do this by clicking here to complete our online form, or by calling the recycling hotline on 0800 121 8888.

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