Your recycling bin

Mixed recycling (glass bottles and jars, metal tins and cans, paper and card and plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays) is collected in all areas of Surrey. However, in Epsom and Ewell, glass bottles and jars have their own bin and in Reigate and Banstead, paper and card has its own bin. Everywhere else in the county, all material is collected in one bin.

To find out what to do with different types of items, visit the can you recycle…? section of our website.

Items that are not clean or can’t be recycled are a big problem when they go into recycling bins. When it happens, it can even result in all your local community’s efforts going to waste.

When a recycling truck is full, the truck travels to a facility where it tips the material, which is then visually inspected. If the inspection reveals too much dirty or unrecyclable material, the whole load of material may be rejected for recycling and treated as rubbish instead. This hurts the planet as the material will be gasified instead of being turned into something new. It costs more for councils to process too. And your neighbours won’t be happy – all their recycling efforts will have been wasted.

To make sure you’re recycling right and not spoiling your neighbours’ efforts, visit our webpage on how to recycle right.

Once collected, your recycling is turned into lots of new products such as metal tins, benches made from plastic and new wrapping paper. Find out more by visiting our webpage on what happens to your waste.

Very good! In Surrey, we recycle 54.5% of the total waste that comes from households. This puts us in joint 2nd place out of 27 similar local authorities and is significantly higher than the England average of 42.3%. For more information, check out the Surrey Waste Tracker.

The Government has been and is working to change recycling across the UK. In England, the changes are known as Simpler Recycling, some of which have affected Surrey. By 31 March 2026, all areas in Surrey were collecting Tetra Pak cartons, aerosol cans, squeezy plastic and metal tubes and non-black plastic plant pots for recycling.

Any further changes for Surrey residents as part of Simpler Recycling will be communicated to residents and added to this webpage.

The codes found on some plastic packaging refer to the type of plastic resin used to make the item. They do not define whether the item can be recycled or not. Instead, either find the item you’re looking in the can you recycle…? section of our website or search for it using the Surrey Recycles search tool.

Recycling is good for the environment. This is because when items aren’t used again, there is no need to use up fresh resources to make new ones. It also costs councils less money; this is because it costs less to recycle than it does to process any other type of waste.