Black recycling box
Your black recycling box is collected every week.
What you can recycle in your black box:
Plastic
- bottles including lids (eg. drinks, detergent and shampoo bottles)
- pots (eg. yoghurt pots)
- tubs (eg. ice cream tubs and margarine tubs)
- trays (eg. ready meal trays, fruit trays and meat trays)
Tins and cans
- food cans
- drinks cans
- metal lids from jars and cans
- biscuit and sweet tins
Aerosols
- empty deodorant aerosols
- empty household aerosols
Foil
- foil containers (eg. ready meals, pie and quiche cases, take away trays and pet food trays)
- foil lids (eg. yoghurt and cream tubs, instant noodles)
- confectionary foil - some chocolate bars are wrapped in foil
- kitchen foil
Please do not put these items in your black box:
- plastic film
- plastic wrapping
- plastic bags
- plastic toys
- plastic plant pots
- plastic tubes (eg. toothpaste tubes and hand cream tubes)
- cartons
- other metals
- full aerosols - wait until empty
- paint tins
- black plastic
- crisp packets
- drink, baby food and pet food pouches
- 'foil' wrapping paper
- camping gas bottles
Preparing your recycling for collection:
- rinse your plastic packaging and tins to remove food residue
- squash and stack your packaging to fit more in your box
- put the lids back on your plastic bottles to stop them getting lost
- scrunch your foil into a tennis-ball sized ball so that it can be picked up by our sorting machinery
How your plastic is recycled:
Plastic packaging is sent to various sites across the UK. It is sorted, shredded, washed, melted and made into pellets. It is then used by manufacturers to make items such as plastic bottles and garden furniture.
Find out how plastics are recycled
How your cans, foil and aerosols are recycled:
Aluminium is sent to Merseyside to be shredded and melted before being made into new drinks cans.
Steel cans are sent to Wiltshire where they are melted before being made into products such as bikes, car parts and new food cans.