Plastic plant pots

Can plastic plant pots be recycled at home?

Yes, they can from 1st June. Non-black plastic plant pots and trays with a minimum size of 40mm x 40mm can now be recycled in your blue top kerbside collection at home.

Please ensure that the plant pots are clean and dry (no soil or compost) and are placed in your recycling bin loose, not stacked inside each other.
Please do not throw in any made of PE, PET, or PP and these cannot be recycled.

Why do the plastic plant pots need to be clean?

All items placed in your recycling bin must be clean; shake out and remove any soil or compost from the plant pots, rinse, before recycling them. Plastic plant pots that have left over soil or compost can ruin the quality of other items in your recycling bin. This can then in turn spoil the recycling in the recycling lorries and at the materials recycling facility.

How else can plastic plant pots be recycled or reused?

Plastic plant pots are great for replanting in your garden or donating to community groups or gardens. They can also be recycled through garden centre take-back schemes in West Sussex (most major garden centres have a recycling/reuse point – ask in garden centre as they are not always in an obvious location). Also, B&Q have a plastic plant pot recycling scheme.

---

Recycling home page

Unwanted medicines

Medicines and health

You can take unused medicines, prescription or otherwise, and empty inhalers back to your local pharmacy, like Boots. Incidentally this applies to all unused medicines, including tablets or liquids. Do not be tempted to flush them down the loo!

Your local chemist, including all Boots pharmacies, are obliged to accept back unwanted medicines from patients.

If you have empty blister packs that contained medical tablets, these can be recycled in your blue top kerbside bin in the same way as all foil containers. Please do check the blister packs are empty.

Boots also take and recycle contact lenses.

---

Recycling home page

General bin etiquette

Whilst many of us have been in lockdown, we have had an opportunity to declutter rooms, garages, or sheds. Under normal circumstances we would take the clutter to charity shops or to the HWRS (Household Waste Recycling Site), the TIP.

I would ask you not to simply dump all your declutter into your black top kerbside rubbish bin. Declutter is not household waste.

The Household Waste Recycling Site (the Tip)
Did you know that 80% of what you take to the Tip is recycled?

First organise all the rubbish at home for the Tip into different waste streams into boxes, so disposing is easy when he gets there!

Also remember to take your ID to show you are a West Sussex resident.

Your general waste bin

- Try to put as little as possible in this bin – can anything be reused?

- Bag or double bag all food waste.

- Check what can be recycled and put this clean, dry and loose into your recycling bin. Check this site for what can be recycled – more than you think - www.recycleforwestsussex.org

Your recycling bin

We want you to keep recycling, and you will need to get as much as possible in your bin.

- Cut up or rip up cardboard to cereal box size – great stress relief

- Plastics, squash or open out

- Do not leave recycling next to bin. They will not take it as there is a handling risk.

---

Recycling home page

Bubble wrap and bags

Bubble wrap is made of the same type of plastic as plastic carrier bags and so can be taken to the carrier bag bin in Co-op, Marks and Spencers, or Waitrose, and you will no longer need to put then into your black bin. A simple routine of a bag to pop it into and drop off before you start shopping.

Note: As of November 2023, Sainsburys, Haywards Heath will no longer be accepting soft plastics for recycling. They will still offer the recycling of plastic hangers, batteries, cosmetics, and water filters.

I don’t think everyone is aware of this. Carrier bag bins (at supermarkets) can recycle so many more plastic items, such as:

• Plastic carrier bags

• Plastic bread bags (shake out)

• Plastic cereal bags (like porridge oats bags, not inners from boxes of cereals, although some are recyclable - check the label)

• Plastic wrappers and ring joiners from multipacks of cans

• Toilet roll and kitchen roll plastic wrappers

• Plastic freezer bags

• Plastic magazine and newspaper wrappers (from your letterbox post)

• Fruit and veg supermarket bags

• Bubble wrap

---

Recycling home page