Recycling properly is not easy if you don’t have some facts at hand. Here are a few easy rules to remember so you are recycling what you can.

Do not scrunch up plastic bottles

Do not flatten or scrunch up plastic bottles before you put them in the recycling bin. The reason why is because it makes it harder for machines in the recycling process to identify what products they are.

Leave lids and labels on

If you are throwing bottles in the recycling bin, leave the lids on the bottles. Do not take them off and put them separately in the recycling bin or the general waste bin. This is also the same for labels on the bottles. Do not peel the labels off and put them in the bin separately, they need to stay on the bottle, otherwise they are harder to identify.

Glitter = litter

If something has glitter on it, it cannot be recycled. Products like birthday cards and wrapping paper for presents cannot be put in the recycling bin and turned into another product. So, if you buy birthday cards and wrapping paper, avoid ones that have glitter on them and choose ones which are made of recyclable products.

The scrunch test

Some wrapping paper can be recycled and some cannot be recycled because of what they are made of. Some wrapping paper is made up of a mixture of paper and plastic which means it cannot be put in the recycling bin, whilst others are purely made up of paper and can be recycled. The way to tell if you can recycle it is when you scrunch it and then open your hand. If you scrunch it and it keeps its shape, this means it can be recycled. If it does not keep shape and expands out, it is not recyclable because there is too much plastic in the product. Plastic does not keep its shape but paper does because it is stronger.

Black plastic cannot be recycled

Plastic which is the colour black cannot be recycled because infrared scanning is used to sort out waste in the recycling process. This cannot detect black plastic properly and gets discarded and ends up in landfill. It is estimated that 3.5 million tonnes of plastic end up in landfill each year because it is black. This is why you should not buy black bin liners. Anything in black bin liners will be disposed of instead of recycled.

Nothing smaller than a tennis ball can be recycled

Do not put anything smaller than a tennis ball in the recycling bin. It cannot be identified, and it is not big enough to turned into a new product.