More recycling information

The following items can go in your blue-lid recycling bin:

• Cardboard (including cereal boxes, egg boxes)
• Paper (including newspapers, magazines, junk mail)
• Phone books and directories
• Plastic bottles; for example, drinks, toiletries, cleaning products
• Food tins, drink cans, metal sweet and biscuit tins
• Empty aerosols; for example, deodorants, hair sprays, polish (see below for more information)

Please rinse empty tins and cans and plastic bottles. If possible, please remove trigger sprays from plastic bottles and place them in your general waste bin. 

Please do not put your recycling in black sacks or plastic bags.

Please do not put the following items in your blue-lid recycling bin:

• Black sacks, plastic/carrier bags
• Other plastic, for example yoghurt pots, margarine tubs, food trays, cartons and Tetra Paks such as fruit juice and milk cartons
• Polystyrene and plastic packaging
• Books (the Southampton tip/dump in First Avenue, Millbrook also has a recycling bank for good-quality books)
• Household waste
• Food waste
• Tin foil and foil food trays
• Shredded paper, gift wrap, wet or soiled paper, tissues, paper towels or photographs
• Textiles/clothes
• Glass
• Garden waste
• Wood

All of your tins, cans and aerosols can be put in your recycling bin.

Tins & cans – Yes please

• Food tins
• Drink cans
• Pet food tins
• Biscuit and sweet tins
• Metal coffee cans
• Empty and rinse tins and cans to remove left over foods or liquids that can contaminate other recyclables
• You can leave labels on - these are removed in the recycling process
• Put the lid inside the can and squash the top to stop the lids becoming trapped in other recycling

Aerosols – Yes please

• Deodorant and hairspray
• Household cleaning aerosols
• Air fresheners
• De-icer

Which metals can't you recycle?

Aerosols marked with a black skull and crossbones or black cross on an orange background should be put in your general waste bin.

Foil should also be placed in your general waste bins.

What happens to them?

Your empty cans are collected along with the rest of your recycling and taken to a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), where they are separated into steel and aluminium. They are then crushed, baled and sent to re-processors.

At the recycling plant, the cans are put into a furnace and heated to very high temperatures so they melt down.

The molten metal is poured into large blocks, cooled and then rolled into large coils of thin metal.

These coils are then used by manufacturers to make new products, including new tins and cans.

Watch RecycleNow's video to find out more about how cans are recycled.