Recycling 101: Commonly Mis-recycled Items

Recycling is a necessary part of the circular economy, and most of us understand why it matters. The catch is that while almost any material is recyclable under the right conditions, many are not recyclable in practice, because the local facilities to process them do not exist. That gap is how commonly mis-recycled items like coffee cups and receipts keep ending up in recycling bins. Throwing non-recyclables into the recycling and hoping, a habit known as wish-cycling, can contaminate a whole batch and send all of it to landfill. Even seasoned recyclers pause over some of the items below, so we have gathered the most frequent offenders and where each one should go instead. One caveat before we start: recycling is hyper-local, and there will always be exceptions. If your council or waste provider says something different from the guidance below, follow them.

Can you recycle takeaway coffee cups?

The single-use coffee cup is one of the most common contaminants in recycling bins. It looks and feels like paper, but a thin plastic lining keeps it watertight, and that lining makes it very difficult to recycle. Standard kerbside and office paper collections cannot process it. In the UK, dedicated cup collection points do exist: the National Cup Recycling Scheme, funded by Costa, McDonald's, Greggs and other chains, takes cups back through participating stores. Unless you can get your cup to one of those, it belongs in the landfill bin.

Coffee cup lids

Many cup lids are still made from polystyrene, plastic number 6, which very few facilities can process. Newer lids are often polypropylene, number 5, which is more widely recycled, but lids are usually too small for sorting machinery anyway, and New Zealand's kerbside rules now exclude lids entirely. Check the number, but when in doubt the lid goes in the landfill bin.

Compostable coffee cups

More cafes now use cups labelled compostable, and it is natural to assume they can go in the organics bin. Many cannot. Most compostable cups only break down in commercial composting facilities, and each operator sets its own rules about which materials it accepts. Unless your organics collection specifically says yes, put them in the landfill bin. They never go in the recycling.

Compostable packaging and bioplastics

Compostable packaging more broadly follows the same logic. Anything lined with bioplastic is unlikely to break down in a home compost or a standard organics collection. Other options look and feel like paper but are made from plant material such as cornstarch, so they cannot be recycled with your paper either, though they are the most likely to be accepted in an organics bin. One rule never bends: no compostable material goes in the recycling.

Bioplastics themselves usually carry a number 7, the catch-all plastics category. A PLA cup can look identical to a number 1 PET cup, but it is made from plant material and will contaminate plastic recycling. Because bioplastics need very specific conditions to break down, many organics collections will not take them either, even when the label says compostable.

Paper products that cannot be recycled

Paper towels and tissues are usually made from recycled paper, and that is exactly the problem. Each time paper is recycled the fibres get shorter, and by the time they become tissue they are too short to recycle again. Add food, grease or cleaning fluids and they are doubly unrecyclable. Unbleached ones can often be composted, and reusable cloths are the better swap where hygiene allows.

Thermal receipts look and feel like paper, but the heat-reactive coating rules them out. The chemical developer BPA was banned from receipts in the UK and EU in 2020, but the common substitutes, including bisphenol S, still do not belong in a paper stream. Choose an electronic receipt or refuse one altogether; a paper receipt goes in the landfill bin.

The wrapper around a ream of printer paper usually has a plastic or wax layer to keep the paper dry, so it cannot go in with paper recycling either. Unless it is clearly marked recyclable, it goes to landfill.

Which plastics don't belong in the recycling bin?

As we covered in our guide to the plastic codes, not every plastic with the chasing arrows is recyclable. Numbers 1, 2 and 5 are the most widely accepted; in New Zealand they are now the only plastics accepted kerbside. Numbers 3, 4, 6 and 7 rarely make it through kerbside or office recycling, so check with your provider before they go in.

Un-numbered plastic is a common contaminant too. No number often means mixed materials, and if sorters cannot identify a plastic, it cannot risk entering the recycling stream. It goes to landfill.

Soft plastics are the exception to the no-number rule. If it scrunches in your hand and stays scrunched, it is a soft plastic, and these usually go unlabelled because they are so thin. They never belong in your kerbside bin, but collection options vary by country. Most large UK supermarkets take soft plastics at front-of-store bins, and councils in England must add kerbside collection of plastic film by 31 March 2027. New Zealand's Soft Plastic Recycling Scheme runs drop-off bins at participating supermarkets. In Australia, supermarket collection has been returning store by store since the REDcycle scheme collapsed in 2022. Check what is available near you before you start saving them up.

Other commonly mis-recycled items

Beverage cartons like Tetra Pak are recyclable, but pulling their paper, plastic and foil layers apart needs specialist processing. Access is improving in some places: from 31 March 2026, councils in England must accept cartons in kerbside collections. In New Zealand, cartons were removed from kerbside collections in 2024, so look for a local drop-off point instead.

Toys, buckets, pipes and other odd household plastics do not suit standard recycling programmes. Reuse sits above recycling on the waste hierarchy, so donating them or giving them away online is the better outcome, and specialised recyclers can handle what is beyond saving.

Cooking glass and ceramics cannot join your glass recycling. Heat-resistant treatments mean they melt at different temperatures from bottles and jars, so one roasting dish can contaminate a whole load of glass.

Spotted something we missed? Let us know.

Common questions

Can coffee cups go in the recycling bin?

No. The plastic lining means they need specialist processing. Use a dedicated cup collection point where one exists; otherwise they go in the landfill bin.

Are compostable cups and packaging recyclable?

No, compostable packaging never goes in the recycling. Most of it also needs commercial composting to break down, so check with your waste provider before using the organics bin.

What happens if the wrong item goes in the recycling?

It can contaminate the whole batch, which may then be landfilled, and it can jam or damage sorting machinery. If in doubt, leave it out.