Green box recycling

Your green box

Green box recycling is weekly.

Please put your box out at the edge of your property where it can be seen by 7am on your collection day.

Important - please do not put black plastic in your green recycling box, we cannot recycle it.

What's in?

• All bottle tops, lids and caps
• Bottles from the kitchen (milk, squash, cola, ketchup)
• Bottles from the bathroom (shampoo, cleanser, shower gel)
• Bottles from under the sink (bleach, washing up liquid)
• Pots (yogurts pots)
• Trays (meat, fruit, biscuit trays)
• Tubs (ice cream, margarine)
• Cartons (Tetra paks) All food and drink cartons.
• Cans. All food cans.
• Foil. Foil and take away containers.
• Aerosols. Empty aerosols only. Please remove lids.
• Cardboard (flattened and in or next to your green box)

• Type 1 PET – soft drinks bottles, water bottles, cooking oil bottles (except black plastic, even if it has the PET 1 symbol)
• Type 2 HDPE – detergent bottles, milk bottles, washing up liquid bottles
• Type 5 PP – bottle caps, drinking straws, yogurt pots, margarine tub
• Type 6 PS – if plastic tableware, vending cups, meat trays , fruit and vegetable trays

What's out?

• All black plastic (regardless of "type")
• Bin liners
• Bubble wrap
• Carrier/plastic bags
• Cellophane
• Cling film
• Crisp packets
• Hard plastics (eg, flower pots, toys, videos, drain pipes)
• Polystyrene
• Type 3 PVC or V – plastic pipes, hard plastic eg the type used for outdoor furniture, plastic toys, CD/DVD cases, shrink wrap
• Type 4 LDPE – carrier bags and bin liners, crisp packets, bread bags, frozen food bags, bubble wrap, non plastic items
• Expanded PS (polystyrene foam)

Report it, apply for it

You can order a new or extra green box online.

If your green box has not been emptied, you can report it using our missed collections form.

Organising your green box

You have a net to put over your green recycling box on windy days to stop the materials blowing away. Please make sure you put it back into your recycling box to reduce the risk of small animals such as hedgehogs or foxes getting caught up in them.

Please group the materials without using plastic bags to separate them. The only time you should use bags is when placing excess recycling next to your box.

It is useful if you paint your house number on the side of your green box so the crew can identify which property the box has come from. It may also prevent people from taking a box that is not theirs.

Cardboard

Cardboard will be made back into cardboard packaging. It will no longer be sent for composting so please do not put it in your food waste or garden waste bin.

• Flatten and fold it as much as you can
• Please put excess cardboard that won't fit into your green recycling box beside it
• Cardboard can be placed in another cardboard box to hold it all together

Rinsing and flattening items

It helps the crews and stops animals from being attracted to them if you:

• rinse and flatten plastic packaging and tetra paks
• rinse food cans

Dirty cartons can be unpleasant and unsafe to handle. They can also contaminate the other materials, which means they might not be able to be sent for recycling.

Frequently asked questions

Why can't I recycle black plastic?

Plastics are sorted by a machine that uses light to separate the different types and unfortunately black plastics can’t be seen by this optical sorting method. Another reason is that any black items that get into the load by mistake ‘taint’ the rest of the load, spoiling the colours.

What do I do if I have too much recycling to go in my green box?

You can request an additional green box by phoning our customer services centre on 0117 922 2100. Alternatively you can place additional recycling in untied plastic carrier bags out next to your green box. If you happen to use black bin liners, please label them as recycling.