Aluminium foil is found on lots of packaging and, just like your food and drink cans and aerosols, it’s recyclable and can also be put out for collection. Here’s a quick guide on how to spot it and how to recycle it.
Not sure if it’s aluminium foil? Just scrunch the pack or foil into your hand, if it stays scrunched it’s aluminium and can be recycled. If it springs back open then it’s film and cannot be recycled.
Foil containers
With foil containers such as ready meals or takeaway trays:
- wipe or shake off any crumbs
- rinse off any food or sauce - dirty foil can make your bin smelly and can spoil other recyclables
Foil lids
With foil lids, such as yoghurt pot and cream tub lids:
- wipe or rinse off food
Confectionery foil
With foil that chocolate bars are wrapped in:
- scrunch this foil together with other foil to make a larger ball
Kitchen foil
With aluminium kitchen foil:
- wipe or shake off any crumbs, scrunch then recycle
- save smaller pieces of kitchen foil, scrunch them together into a ball with foil sweet wrappers and foil lids before recycling
- if it has a lot of baked-on food or is very greasy, for example from a roast or barbecue, it can be put straight into your kitchen bin - this is because it’s too heavily contaminated and could disrupt the recycling process
