sustainellie

You can recycle a lot more metal than you realise – I didn’t realise you could recycle most of these things until I started looking into it!

If you’re looking for less common items, such as keys or saucepans, scroll to the bottom of this page.

Everyday items

You can usually recycle in household collections:
– Drink cans
– Food tins (put lid inside the tin to avoid sharp edges)
– Biscuit tins and their lids
– Aerosols (remove plastic cap & recycle separately)
– Aluminium foil (scrunch into a ball)
– Aluminium foil trays (e.g. from take-aways)
– Aluminium tubes (e.g. tomato puree, remove plastic cap)

You can’t normally recycle:
– Laminated foil
– Crisp packets
– Sweet wrappers
– Metal chemical containers (such as for paint or engine oil)

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Drink Cans & Food Tins

You can normally recycle these in the household recycling, but if not you’ll be able to recycle them at a Household Waste Recycling Centre.

Should I do anything before recycling?
– rinse any left over food/ liquid from the container
– don’t worry about removing the lid – they can do this in the recycling process
– put the lid inside the tin to protect from sharp edges
– crush cans to maximise space where possible

Aerosols

You can normally recycle these in the household recycling, but if not you’ll be able to recycle them at a Household Waste Recycling Centre.

Should I do anything before recycling?
– make sure it is completely empty
– don’t pierce or flatten it
– remove anything which you can get off easily, such as the lid

Kitchen Foil & Foil Trays

You can normally recycle these in the household recycling, but if not you’ll be able to recycle them at a Household Waste Recycling Centre. To check if it is laminated (which isn’t recyclable) or not, scrunch it up – if it stays scrunched it isn’t laminated, so can be recycled.

Should I do anything before recycling?
– rinse any residue/ crumbs from the foil
– scrunch any pieces you have together – the more you have, the easier it is to recycle

Lids On Glass Jars & Bottles

These are recyclable, but are a different metal to tins, cans, foil, etc., so it is best to leave them on the glass jar/ bottle and recycle them in the glass recycling, when they will then be sorted and recycled.

Laminated Foil

You can’t recycle this. To check if it is standard foil or laminated, scrunch it up and if it unravels by itself, it is laminated. Examples of this are pet food pouches.

Crisp Packets

Unfortunately you can’t recycle these, try to avoid buying them whenever possible (or buy bigger bags to minimise waste)!

Non-everyday Items

You can usually recycle (but not in household collections):
– Saucepans
– Cutlery
– Paint cans
– Keys

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Saucepans

These cannot be put in household recycling, but if they are in good condition, give them to a charity shop, and if they aren’t take them to the local Household Waste Recycling Centre.

Cutlery

This cannot be put in household recycling , but if the cutlery is still in good condition, you can donate it to charity.

Paint Cans

This is about metal paint cans, for plastic paint cans, check out the plastics page.

These cannot be put in household recycling, but you should be able to recycle them at the local Household Waste Recycling Centre.

Should I do anything before recycling?
– make sure the can is empty and dry

Keys

These cannot be put in household recycling, but you should be able to recycle them at the local Household Waste Recycling Centre. If you have a large number, you may be able to sell them to a local scrap metal place.

Key: