Plastics - Frequently Asked Questions

What plastics can I put in my recycling bin?

Due to market availability, we can only accept plastic bottles for recycling. There are therefore two key questions that you need to ask yourself before placing a plastic object in your recycling bin.

• Is it plastic?
• Is it a bottle?

If the answer to these is yes to both of these then put it in your recycling bin. - If there is any doubt it is best left out.

Does it matter what colour plastic bottles I put in my recycling bin?

We cannot accept brown or black coloured bottles.

Lots of plastic things, like yoghurt pots, have the recycling triangle symbol on them. If they can be recycled why can't we put them in our recycling containers?

There are many different types of plastic, almost all of which, can technically be recycled. However to recycle a specific material on a commercial scale there needs to be a secure, sustainable market for us to sell the material we collect. We cannot currently identify a suitable market to sell these other plastic types into and so we are unable to collect them. It would be wrong to ask you to go to the effort of separating any material if we are unable to recycle it.

But my yoghurt pot or other containers has the same recycling symbol on it as the plastic bottles so surely it can be recycled?

Some plastic containers are made of the same material as plastic bottles but many others aren't. If we were to accept other plastic containers for recycling we would get all types of plastics put into the recycling bins and we would end up with a mix of plastics for which we are unable to find a suitable market.

So why should I remove the lids from the bottles?

The lids are often made from a different type and/or colour of plastic to the rest of the bottle. As the lid is screwed onto the bottle it is difficult to remove automatically and so can readily contaminate the plastic reducing both quality and value of the material. Excessive contamination can lead to the reprocessor rejecting the complete load.

Why can't you just sort out the 'good' plastic from the 'bad' plastic?

Sorting recycling costs money. The more types of materials there are to sort, and the more similar they are, the harder and more expensive it gets. It is much easier for example to separate an aluminium can from a plastic bottle than it is to separate two types of yogurt pot from each other.

If we were to collect all types of plastic and then sort good from bad we would end up with a large amount of plastic that people would think was being recycled, as it was put in their recycling bin, but which we were unable to find a suitable market for. If this was the case this material would have to be disposed of to landfill meaning we would spend a lot of your time separating and cost in collecting and sorting plastic just to dispose of it - this is not what we want to do and so we only target materials we know we can recycle.

I know people who live in other parts of the Country and they can put all types of plastic into their recycling boxes/bins. If they can do it why can't you?

We do watch for developments in other areas of the Country, and abroad, to make sure we are aware of market developments. We are not currently aware of any other County areas that are operating a service for all types of plastic on a scale that we would need in West Sussex.

Although there are apparent reprocessors for this material within the UK they are generally of a small scale or developing processes and cannot currently provide the security of market required.

I've seen television programmes where waste is illegally exported for sorting and recycling and ends up in foreign landfills. Can you reassure me that West Sussex does not do this?

Exporting of waste materials is controlled by strict legislation and enforced by the Environment Agency. West Sussex does export some plastics for recycling as this route provides good value and a sustainable outlet for the material. Exports of recyclate from West Sussex comply with all relevant legislation.

The materials that are exported are sent as clean, sorted 'single stream' materials. This means they do not require additional sorting and are sold for reprocessing into new products in the same way that 'virgin' plastics are.

West Sussex does not export any mixed waste or materials.

It must also be remembered that it is estimated that for every six containers of goods from China that we import, only one ever returns full. We are making the best use of this situation by exporting, recyclables in the empty containers that would have been travelling back to China anyway.

Do I need to wash out my plastic bottles?

We recommend that you rinse them out using the left over water from any washing up that you do.

Must I squash or flatten my bottles before putting bottles?

We can recycle them whether or not they are squashed or flattened so it depends on what is more convenient for you. You will fit more in your recycling bin if you do flatten them.