Most likely, you can put cardboard, aluminium cans, a few types of plastic (#1 and #2), and glass containers in your recycling bin. 

Here’s why your local recycling service only accepts materials such as those: It’s a business! Recycling costs money, and someone has to foot the bill for logistics (collection, transport, handling, and storage of rubbish) and processing (cleaning, shredding, and material conversion). If the cost of all this is low enough for your recycling service to make a profit, they’ll accept the item.

If it costs more to recycle an item than the processed material will sell for, they most likely won’t accept it.

^{Local council recycling services play an important role in reducing the amount of rubbish ending up in landfill, but over 2 billion tonnes of rubbish are generated each year globally, and only about 13.5% is recycled.1} Most of the items that get dumped or sent to landfills are not “unrecyclable”; they can be recycled; someone just has to pay for it.

At EnviRecycle, we can recycle the unrecyclable because we work with brands, retailers, and other stakeholders who are willing to fund the process of recycling hard-to-recycle items.

This is known as “voluntary extended producer responsibility.”

This funding allows our Research & Development (R&D) team to find ways to recycle hundreds of complex waste streams by developing new processes and formulations, and by consulting with recycling facilities to fine-tune them. Then, our Surrey team finds the right recyclers and local dumps to process the material and, ultimately, identify applications for the recycled material.

In short, we can collect most large items you can’t currently put in the rubbish bin for recycling. We collect and recycle hundreds of different types of waste, from old sofas and cookers, cardboard boxes, to garden waste; you name it, we probably recycle it!

There are a couple of ways you can recycle the ‘unrecyclable’ with EnviRecycle:

• Some items are recyclable when they can be reliably collected, sorted, cleaned and reprocessed into useful material.
• Items may be refused if they contain food residue, hazardous materials, mixed materials, or plastics that local facilities cannot process.
• In Surrey, checking item-specific guidance before disposal helps reduce contamination and keeps recyclable materials in better condition.
• GOV.UK: Simpler recycling for households in England
• Recycle Now: How to recycle at home
• Recycle Now: Recycle an item checker
• WasteCare: How to dispose of hazardous waste
• Biffa: What is contamination in recycling?