You can recycle most paper and cardboard, but not all. Below will help you demystify what you can put in your recycling bin

You can recycle in your recycling bin:

  • All cardboard boxes. Make sure you remove sellotape and packaging from the inside
  • All newspaper and magazines (though not the plastic film that come around some magazines)
  • Phone books
  • Printed paper
  • Egg Boxes
  • Greetings/birthday/christmas cards – remove embellishments first
  • Wrapping paper that doesn’t contain plastic or glitter or foil
  • Toilet roll and kitchen roll tubes
  • Pizza Boxes – even with the grease stain, but remove the food

Food and drinks cartons such as those that come with juice, some soups and longlife milk can be recycled in household recycling, but check your local authority as some councils don’t take this waste. You can also check Tetrapak’s website which will let you know whether your Local Authority takes Tetrapak cartons

You can’t recycle

  • Paper Towels
  • Paper coffee cups (often contain plastic)
  • Fast food drinks cups (often contain plastic)
  • Cardboard contaminated with food
  • Hot chocolate drinking cans i.e cardboard tubes with a metal bottom
  • Toilet paper
  • Greetings cards with glitter
  • Wrapping paper that contains plastic (use the scrunch test – if you scrunch it and it springs back then it cannot be recycled)
  • Books – though you can sell them, give them to a charity shop or friend

You can recycle through special services

  • Pringles Tubes can be recycled through Terracycle
  • Paper coffee cups (often contain plastic) these can sometimes be recycled where you purchased the cup
  • Fast food drinks cups (often contain plastic) these can sometimes be recycled where you purchased the cup

You may also like:


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.