In Leeds, the local council provides an excellent household recycling service and accepted items include paper, cardboard, cans, tins, and plastics 1, 2, 4 and 5.
However, several items in particular confuse a lot of householders. Can they be recycled or not?
We all live busy lives, and this can mean we don’t always check the numbers on plastic against the list provided by the local authority.
Some people may not stop to think about what to do with an item if it can’t be recycled kerbside, either.
This results in items ending up in the recycling bin when they shouldn’t, and items being sent to landfill when they could have been recycled.
Below are three things that can’t be recycled kerbside in Leeds.
Crisp packets
There currently isn’t a single council in the country that collects crisp packets for recycling.
The packaging is recyclable, but the UK’s local councils don’t have the equipment required to do it.
However, Walkers has teamed up with TerraCycle to provide the UK’s first crisp packet recycling scheme.
You can now either drop any brand of crisp packet off at a collection point or start your own local collection point in agreement with TerraCycle.
Your local collection points (at the time of writing) are listed below:
- Clarendon Foodcourt, Leeds General Infirmary
- Ecotopia, Leeds city centre
- RSPCA, Pudsey
- Leeds Women’s Aid charity shop, Horsforth
- Holy Name Scouts, Ireland Wood
- St Paul’s Catholic Primary School, Camp Town
- Gledhow Primary School
- Windmill Health Centre, Swarcliffe
- Bardsey Primary School
- RSPB St Aidan’s Nature Park
- Milestone Design Ltd. , Ilkley
- Addingham Scout Hut
- 1st Wetherby Scout Hut
Toothpaste packaging
Toothpaste packaging causes a lot of confusion for householders the country over, as parts of it look recyclable — the cardboard box, for example.
However, none of it can be recycled kerbside because the required facilities aren’t available.
Instead, TerraCycle joined forces with Colgate.
Much like the crisp packet scheme, you can drop your toothpaste packaging off at drop-off points or start your own collection point.
Accepted for this scheme are toothbrushes, electric toothbrush heads, toothpaste tubes, toothbrush packaging, and toothpaste packaging.
Black plastic
Some food products are sold in black plastic packaging, and this cannot easily be recycled.
This is primarily because the sensors can’t spot it on conveyor belts at the recycling centres.
Manually sorting the waste isn’t an option and so most black plastic ends up being sent to landfill.
The main reason for the use of black plastic is that it is more aesthetically pleasing than alternatives.
Another reason is the cost of it compared to other plastics.
Luckily, due to an increase in eco-awareness in recent times, many manufacturers are moving away from using black plastic.
If you do come across black plastic in the meantime, unfortunately, it will have to go in your general waste bin if you don’t reuse it.
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Thank goodness Bradford have got their act together. Leeds recycling is err rubbish
This information is wrong. Tetrapaks are accepted in the green bin in Leeds.
Hi Chris, thank you for your comment; this is an old article and so, while it was accurate at the time of publishing, things have certainly changed since. We’ll update it now to reflect the changes. Thanks again! Lucy at Team Forge
The H W Martin Leeds website states that they sort and recycle textiles. The Leeds Green bin information says that textiles are not to be placed in the green bins. Which is correct – and if both are correct, what is the problem with textiles in the green bins ?
Hi Rick, I can’t see mention of textiles in this particular post but it is entirely possible that a waste material can be processed by one waste management system and not another — this is usually down to available equipment. I hope that helps.