What to do with household waste
Find out how to reduce, recycle and dispose of your household waste.
Plastic packaging, pots, tubs and trays
Reduce your waste
There are lots of great refill shops in Hampshire, so why not consider refillable options for a range of items, from cleaning products to pasta. Visit Smart Living for more information on how to avoid plastics.
Alternatively, plastic packaging, pots, tubs and trays are great materials for crafting at school or in the home. Try making your own rubbish monster!
Pots, tubs and trays can also be used as handy planters for seeds.
Recycle your waste
Cannot be recycled at a Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC)
Cannot be recycled in your home recycling
Plastic packaging, pots, tubs and trays cannot currently be recycled in your recycling bin at home.
It is important that environmentally and economically sustainable markets for recycling plastic streams exist. Unfortunately, such market outlets are not widespread in the UK or abroad and Hampshire is keen to ensure that no material collected for recycling ends up being exported and not recycled.
Mixed recycling collected from Hampshire households is sorted at one of two Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs). These facilities currently sort items via a mix of mechanical and manual sorting. The MRFs are able to sort plastic bottles from other materials via an “optical sort” whereby infra-red light is used to identify and separate two types of plastic bottle:
- PET (indicated by a number 1 on the bottom of the bottle)
- HDPE (indicated by a number 2 on the bottom of the bottle)
Plastic packaging, pots, tubs and trays are made up of a wider variety of polymers (such as PS, PP, PET, PVC, and LDPE). This range of polymers cannot currently be sorted at the MRFs.
However, the County Council is aware of the duty in the Environment Act to recycle plastic packaging, pots, tubs and trays by April 2026 and we are working closely with our partners to determine how we can fulfil this.
Dispose of your waste
Please dispose of plastic packaging, pots, tubs and trays in your household waste bin at home.
What happens to your waste?
The contents of your household waste bin will be sent to one of three Energy Recovery Facilities (ERFs) in Hampshire, where it will be safely incinerated. Each year, the three ERFs generate enough electricity to power 53,000 Hampshire homes!
Mixed recycling collected from Hampshire households is sorted at one of two Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) in Hampshire. The MRFs sort your recycling into different material streams to be recycled into new items.
Less than 5% of Hampshire's household waste is sent to landfill.
Find out more about what happens to your waste
It is your duty of care to dispose of your waste correctly. You could be fined an unlimited amount by your local council if your waste ends up fly tipped. Find out more