Recycling: what you can and can't recycle and why it's so confusing

• No, I didn’t know what this term meant until recently either – apparently it’s when people try to recycle items that should be thrown away instead.
• New rules will ask people to stop “over-recycling” and to be more careful about what they put in their recycling bins.
• It’s no wonder that many admit it’s easier just to throw something in the bin instead of working out if it can be recycled.

Waste not

• While huge strides are being made in this area, we are still some way off all packaging being made in this way in a cost-effective manner.
• One of the main issues is there are differences in how recycling waste is collected across the UK – this can even be the case from one street to another.
• But if you’ve thrown yours away – or perhaps recycled it - the information should also be on your local authorities’ website.
• One of the main reasons there are currently variations in what different authorities do or don’t recycle is based on what the waste management companies they use to recyclable waste after it’s collected.

Recycling tips

• As with crisp packets and soft plastics, things such as pet food pouches can be recycled too but again not typically via your household collections – instead, these can often go to larger supermarkets for recycling.
• But it’s a good idea to rinse them to avoid contamination during the recycling process (and to stop your bin smelling in between collections).
• This is because opaque trays cannot be sorted from other types of plastic in a recycling facility as light cannot pass through them.
• Although it definitely isn’t a case of the more the merrier when it comes to recycling, the better we are as a society at dealing with our waste and not just sending it to landfill, the better our air and environment will be for us and future generations.