What can be recycled in your green bin

We will collect your green recycling bin every other week. To check which week this will be see our Collections page.

You can also use the Recycling A-Z which is a comprehensive guide on what you can recycle and where in the county you can take it.

Here is a list of what you can put in your green bin:

Any paper and cardboard, including:

• Books - only if not suitable for taking to a charity shop
• Catalogues
• Cereal boxes
• Corrugated cardboard
• Envelopes (including envelopes with windows)
• Greeting cards
• Junk mail
• Magazines
• Newspapers
• Phone directories (including the Yellow Pages)
• Shredded paper - can still go into your green wheeled bin as long as you put it in a paper envelope or paper/plastic bag or paper bag.
• Tissue boxes
• Toilet roll tubes
• Window envelopes
• Writing paper

Glass

• Mixed glass bottles and jars - any colour (and bottle tops).

All plastic packaging (with the exception of cling film), including:

• Carrier bags
• Detergent bottles
• Drinks bottles (and tops, although if possible remove the tops and squash down the bottle)
• Food and drink cartons (Tetra Paks)
• Food trays
• General plastic packaging (e.g. salad bags)
• Ice cream tubs
• Margarine tubs
• Plastic plant pots
• Plastic milk cartons and bottles
• Shampoo bottles
• Yoghurt pots

We can accept plastic wrapping from newspapers and magazines, but please remove this from the magazine before placing it in the recycling bin.

Metal

• Aerosols
• Foil
• Food tins such as takeaway or pie tins
• Steel and aluminium food and drink cans (please wash and squash them first)

Please remember any extra recycling can be put out for collection next to your bin in either clear or opaque sacks, carrier bags or cardboard boxes.

The following items cannot go in your green bin:

• Batteries - most places that sell batteries must also take back used ones or the council has a battery collection box in its reception at Abbey House where you can drop off old batteries.
• Bubble wrap
• Cat litter / animal litter or straw
• Cat food pouches
• CDs, DVDs, videos, cassettes and books can be recycled at six of the County's Waste Recycling Centres.
• Children's toys (take to charity shops)
• China or broken crockery
• Cling film
• Cork
• Crisp packets / pringles tubes
• Cold ash
• Dog faeces
• Electrical items
• Light bulbs - old filament light bulbs will have to go in the grey rubbish bin and low energy light bulbs can be taken to any County Waste Recycling Centre.
• Metal coat hangers
• Mirrors
• Nappies
• Pill packets (e.g. ibuprofen and paracetemol)
• Plastic coated paper cups
• Polystyrene (including expanded polystyrene)
• Printer cartridges - these can be refilled at some computer/printer stores or you can order ink from the internet yourself. If this is not possible please donate them to a cartridge recycling charity.
• Rubber bands
• Sanitary products
• Old shoes (can be taken to a recycling bank or a charity shop)
• Sweet wrappers
• Textiles/clothes and footwear (can be taken to a recycling bank or a charity shop)
• Wood

For details of local charity shops and organisations that will take items such as clothing or electrical goods, please see the Reuse Directory on the right of the page, and to find out your nearest recycling bank see our page on Vale recycling bring sites.

Mobile phone recycling -  the White Horse Leisure and Tennis Centre in Abingdon This link will take you to an external website... has signed up to the Fone Twigs mobile phone recycling scheme where for every old, broken or unwanted phone that is handed in, a tree will be planted in the area. More details about the scheme are available in the leisure centre reception or see the Fone Twigs website This link will take you to an external website... .

Items that cannot be recycled elsewhere can go into your grey rubbish bin

There are a number of reasons why not all items can be recycled. These can include:

• The availability of end markets as there may not be anywhere suitable to send the material to be reprocessed.
• Some items may be made up of lots of different materials, for example crisp packets or cat food pouches which are a type of metalised plastic and cannot currently be separated for recycling.
• The Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) where we send our recycling may not be able to accept certain items if it doesn't have the technology to separate and sort them from the rest of the recycling.
• It may not be cost effective to collect a material, sort it for recycling then send away for recycling, especially if the end product has no real market value.