Plastics, metals and cartons
Plastic, metals and cartons - in your white weighted bag
How do I recycle my plastic, metals and cartons?
- rinse your tins and cans, and wash and squash your plastics and cartons
- place your plastics, metals and cartons, tops and lids into your white bag
- seal your white bag and place it at the kerbside for 7:00am on your collection day
- materials will be taken to a Material Recovery Facility to be separated
- once sorted the materials are then sent for recycling
What can I recycle?
Yes please |
No thank you |
Plastics
Metals
Cartons
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Check your collection day
You can check your collection dates online by typing your postcode with the space and selecting your address.
My containers haven't been emptied
If you put the wrong items in your recycling containers then the collection crew will leave them in your container after they have emptied it. If they are not able to separate the wrong items from the correct ones then they may leave the entire container unemptied.
If you presented your containers at the kerbside by 7:00am on the correct collection day, with the right materials and they have not been emptied, call FCC Environment on 01620 678 825. FCC Environment carry out the collection on our behalf.
What happens to my recycling?
The material from the recycling collections is taken to East Lothian Council's Waste Transfer Station, at Kinwegar, near Wallyford where it is bulked up before it is taken to be separated into different material streams.
The plastic, metals and cartons are loaded into a large lorry and taken to a materials recovery facility at Levenseat where they are sorted to produce bales of different types of plastic bottles, mixed plastics, steel and aluminium and cartons. The sorted materials are then transported to various locations for recycling.
How are the materials used?
Once sorted, the material is used in many different ways:
- mixed plastics are separated, chipped and washed and can then be recycled into wide variety of products including: clothing, toys, chairs and tables, headphones, kitchen utensils, paint pots, building materials such as fencing, flooring, piping, and more plastic packaging
- cans and aerosols are separated into non ferrous metals like aluminium and ferrous metals like steel and are then melted down and used to make kettles, cars, mobile phones, and of course new cans
- cartons are made into recyclable tubes and cores, which are used to wrap paper, man-made fibre yarns, and metal and plastic film around for industrial applications