Do plastic codes tell you if something is recyclable?

You might be surprised to know that we don't use plastic resin identification codes to decide if something can be recycled. In fact, our recycling contract with the company that separates the recycling (Biffa) includes a long list of items that can be recycled, not a list of plastic types.

Recyclability is based on a range of factors that include things like...

• Whether we have technology to separate the object in our materials recycling facility. For example, loose bottle caps don’t always get recycled because they are so small.
• The likelihood that the object is contaminated. For example, a plastic toothpaste tube can be recycled, but will usually contain leftover toothpaste.
• If an item is made of a mixture of materials it might not be technically possible, or economical or environmentally beneficial to separate those materials. For example, crisp packets are made from metalised plastic, but the energy required to separate the metal and plastic outweighs the benefit of recycling them.

How to find out whether something is recyclable

If you are trying to find out whether something can be recycled, you should check our recycling information page or type in the name of the object into our A-Z search function.