Ok, you might be thinking ‘I already know I can recycle plastics, cans, paper and cardboard’, but the real question we’re asking is ‘do you know how, and where, to recycle ALL these different types of plastics, cans, paper and cardboard?’
Because even with the best recycling intentions, as there’s so many different types of these materials around, there might just be a couple of things that you haven’t realised can be recycled – either in the kerbside collections or at your nearest recycling centre.
So, let’s kick things off with plastic!
Plastic
There are many, many different types of plastic, so it’s only to be expected if you find yourself sometimes wondering, “which plastics can I recycle?”
The good news is that in Wrexham, lots of plastic containers are recyclable…and many of these can be recycled at the kerbside.
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Which plastics can I recycle at the kerbside?
The simplest answer is that ANY type of plastic bottles, ALL plastic food trays, plastic pots and plastic tubs can be recycled at the kerbside in Wrexham. Following this should keep you on the right track.
But to help you understand this a bit clearer, we’re going to give you some examples of the types of typical household items that can be recycled. These are…
• Yoghurt pots
• Butter/margarine tubs
• Ready meal trays
• Shampoo bottles
• Shower gel bottles
• Bathroom/kitchen cleaner bottles (including trigger spray ones)
• Fruit punnets (but not the film or bubble wrap)
• The clear containers Chinese/Indian food often come in
• Milkshake bottles
• Meat trays
• Ice cream tubs
• Large chocolate tubs (Quality Street, Celebrations etc)
Just please make sure these are clean and free from any food or drink residue when you recycle them.
Which plastics can I recycle at a recycling centre?
All the pre-mentioned plastics can be recycled at the recycling centres in Wrexham too, but there are also a number of hard plastics that be recycled at the recycling centres that you can’t recycle at the kerbside, such as:
• Toys
• Tupperware
• Plastic garden furniture
• Plastic plant pots
• CD/DVD cases
• Plastic storage boxes and crates
• Plastic bins
• Water butts
Don’t forget though…
The re-use shop
If you’re looking to get rid of plastics such as garden furniture or toys and they’re in good condition, you should think about donating them to our re-use shop at Bryn Lane recycling centre…as well as recycling the items, you’ll be helping a great local charity too.
The shop is run by Nightingale House Hospice and our three recycling centres have an area set aside for people to donate items…if you’re unsure where these areas are, just give one of our attendants a shout, and they’ll be able to point you in the right direction.
Cans
Alongside regular tin cans, do you know you can also recycle clean foil, foil trays and aerosols in your kerbside recycling? Plus, the metal bottle caps from glass bottles are also recyclable, so please drop these in alongside your cans.
But if you have any wine bottles with the metal screw on lids, you’re fine to leave these on the bottles and place them in your glass recycling as these will get separated in the sorting process.
What should I do with tin lids?
Once your metal tin is empty and clean, something you can do to help us out is putting the removed metal tin lid back inside the tin when you recycle it. This helps us because when we crush the metal together at the recycling centre, lids that haven’t been put back inside the tin often fall out of the bale due to their size.
Paper and cardboard
Things that can be recycled in your kerbside paper and cardboard recycling include:
• Brown parcel paper
• Cardboard
• Catalogues
• Christmas cards without embellishments such as glitter or foil
• Photocopier paper
• Directories
• Envelopes (with or without windows)
• Leaflets
• Magazines
• Newspapers and supplements
Any paper that’s coated in a material like wax, plastic or foil (such as metallic wrapping paper or some Christmas/birthday cards) can’t be recycled, so it’s important to consider this when buying these items.
It’s best to stay away from foils, glitters, laminated paper and any plastic add-ons when buying your wrapping paper and event cards so that they can be recycled.
Remove everything extra from cardboard boxes
Yep, and we mean everything! So any tape, staples, bubble wrap, plastic film etc must be removed from your cardboard box before you recycle it.
Unfortunately, some of us aren’t doing this…we’re just taking our item from the box and not thinking about what other materials might be left behind.
In some cases at our recycling centres, we’ve found clothes, rugs, food, mixed plastics and even a Christmas tree still inside cardboard boxes!
Flatten the boxes
If you flatten your boxes before recycling them in your blue bag/top wheelie bin, it’ll leave much more room for the rest of your cardboard and papers.
It also allows our collection rounds to run much more efficiently, so everyone benefits.
But if your box/bag still gets full, you can always leave extra cardboard/papers in solid containers on your collection day and we’ll recycle it and leave your containers behind for you to re-use again.
When doing this though, it’s important not to mix materials…for example, don’t fill a container half with paper/cardboard and half with plastic. In this case, please still separate the materials like you would with your other recycling, so have one container for the papers/cardboard and another container for the plastic.
And remember, you always have the option to take any extra recycling to one of the recycling centres.
Each recycling centre has a designated bin solely for brown corrugated cardboard, and there’s also other ones for mixed papers, in which you can place all your other papers, newspapers, magazines and card packaging. So it’s best to separate your corrugated cardboard from the rest beforehand.
Well, did you learn anything new? Either way, thank you for taking the time to think about recycling and continuing to do your bit for Wrexham 🙂
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