Hurst Life recycles

Aluminium foil

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Foil can be used for many things, mostly though, it’s used in cooking and especially with the use of oil, it can end up with baked on residues of food and grease. So, how do we recycle it?

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With foil if you can scrape off as much food waste as possible either by crinkling it or scrapping it with your fingernail. Small amounts will be okay. If there are large amounts, just cut them out and pop the really damaged foil into your black top rubbish bin.


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Like aluminium cans, aluminium foil is made from bauxite, a natural mineral found in the planet in great abundance. And like aluminium cans, aluminium foil is 100% recyclable - and a valuable recyclable material as it doesn’t lose any quality during the recycling process.

Do scrunch all your foil, big and small, into a ball until it is the size of a tennis ball, but the bigger the better.


Our dependency on oil and bauxite is reduced since recycling one ton of aluminium saves 40 barrels of oil. As you know we ask for all your recycling to be Clean Dry and Loose. Regarding clean, the main issue is that if a soiled item is put into your recycling bin it will contaminate other items in your bin or the bin lorry. If you put a half full tin of baked beans in your recycling bin (it does happen!!) then the beans will contaminate the paper, cardboard and plastics in your bin, and the rest of the bin lorry when it is collected. So as long as when you run your fingers over the foil there is no grease that will contaminate the rest of your recycling bin then it will be OK.


Biodegradable and compostable materials

Many organisations have changed their packaging to show a label, as illustrated.

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If it has this label, then it is suitable for home composting. However this is the only way to recycle this product as it cannot be recycled with your blue top recycling bin. If you put it into your recycling bin then it will get mixed up with the plastics. In West Sussex, we are able to recycle plastic bottles and containers (pots tubs and trays) but if compostable products find their way into kerbside recycling they end up at our Material Recycling Facility (MRF) as they contaminate the plastics material stream.

And do not put them into your green garden waste bin, if you have one, as this will contaminate the garden waste. The contents of your green top garden waste bin, if you have one, in West Sussex go to produce compost to strict standards set by the British Standards Association, which ensure that the soil produced is certified BSI Standard PAS100 as safe to use and be put back into the land.

Please do not place bioplastic material or food waste into your garden waste bin as this will contaminate the quality of the compost produced and then it cannot be returned to the land and used to produce food.

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So if you cannot compost it yourself, or give it to someone with a compost heap, then just place it into your black top rubbish bin.

If the packaging simply says it is compostable, then the same rules apply, apart from the fact that it cannot be composted in a ‘home’ compost heap. This is because your domestic compost heap cannot reach the high temperature required to break it down. It can be composted, but only in an industrial compost process – one that you do not have access to! So they should also be placed in your black top rubbish bin.