Household recycling

England since 31 March 2026

Under the reform known as Simpler Recycling, every waste collection authority in England must collect the following from all households, flats included:

• Food waste, every week and free of charge, from a kitchen caddy and a larger outdoor bin.
• Paper and card.
• Other dry recycling: glass bottles and jars, metal tins and cans, and plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays, together with food and drink cartons.
• Residual waste — whatever is left.

Garden waste is collected where the household asks for the service, and councils may charge for it. Plastic film and carrier bags are to be added to the plastic collection from 31 March 2027.

The materials are fixed nationally; the containers are not. Each council still decides how many bins or bags it issues, their colours, and how often dry recycling is collected, so the council's own website remains the place to check. A number of councils were given later start dates for food waste collection.

What does not go in the recycling

The government guidance lists items that look recyclable and are not collected:

• Glass that is not packaging: drinking glasses, mirrors, window glass, ceramics, light bulbs.
• Metal pouches lined with plastic, kitchenware, and tins that held paint, white spirit or engine oil.
• Plastic labelled compostable or biodegradable, including coffee pods; polystyrene; bulky rigid plastics.
• Paper products such as tissues, wet wipes and nappies.

Preparing it

• Containers are emptied and given a quick rinse. Food left in them spoils paper and card in the same load.
• Recycling is put in loose, not tied up in bags, unless the council supplies bags for it.
• Cardboard is flattened.
• Anything doubtful goes in the residual bin. A load contaminated with the wrong material can be rejected whole.

Things that belong in no household bin

• Batteries, and anything containing one. Crushed in a collection lorry, lithium batteries cause fires. Shops that sell batteries in quantity provide collection points.
• Vapes. The sale of single-use vapes has been banned across the United Kingdom since 1 June 2025; rechargeable ones contain a battery and go back to a shop that sells them or to a recycling centre.
• Electrical goods of every size go to a household waste recycling centre, or back to the retailer when a replacement is bought.
• Paint and chemicals, as set out under lead paint, asbestos and paint disposal.
• Medicines are returned to a pharmacy.
• Clothes and textiles go to charity shops, clothing banks or a recycling centre.

Until kerbside collection of plastic film begins, the larger supermarkets take it back at collection points in their shops.

Deposits on drinks containers

A deposit return scheme for single-use drinks containers is due to begin in October 2027 in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It will cover plastic bottles and metal cans, not glass: a deposit is paid with the drink and refunded when the empty container is returned. Wales is developing a scheme of its own.

The other nations

Waste policy is devolved. Wales has for years required more separation of materials and recycles a higher proportion of its household waste than the rest of the United Kingdom. Scotland and Northern Ireland each have their own codes and targets. In all three, as in England, the council's published instructions are what count.

Large items and other people's vans

Furniture, mattresses and appliances are taken by the council's bulky waste collection, usually for a fee, or to a household waste recycling centre. A householder who hands waste to someone else remains legally responsible for where it ends up: if it is fly-tipped, the householder can be penalised as well as the tipper. Anyone paid to take waste away must be a registered waste carrier, which can be checked on the public register kept by the environmental regulator of each nation.