1. Refuse !!! Refuse is basically the name given to materials which we can’t recycle.

2. What materials are refuse? Drinks cartons - e.g.. orange juice. Tetra-pack cartons are difficult to recycle because they are mixture of plastic and paper and there are limited facilities to process them in the UK. Polystyrene and cellophane – Unfortunately there are no facilities to process these materials at present in the UK. Plastic packaging – this includes items such as yoghurt pots margarine tubs, plastic food trays and flower pots. At present there are limited facilities to recycle these items in the UK. Yellow pages – unfortunately the yellow dye and ink are difficult to remove at the paper mill once the directory is more than a year old.

3. Shredded paper – in order to process such a large amount of material at our Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) we use a lot of automatic sorting equipment which recognises different types of material but not very small or shredded pieces. Plastic carrier bags – The MRFs sort out all the different materials so you don’t need to separate them in bags. Plastic bags can actually cause problems and prevent good materials from being recycled so please make sure they are always loose in your collection container. Aerosol cans - These are not the same as food or drinks cans, so should be disposed of with your household refuse. Never squash or pierce them due to the flammable contents. Food wrappers - Although chocolate bar wrappers and crisp packets may say they are "foil wrapped", it is not foil. This type of plastic cannot be recycled. The ‘Scrunch’ test will help you – if it stays screwed up, it’s foil, but if it opens back out again, it’s plastic.

4. These are all unrecyclable