HOUSEHOLDERS will be able to recycle a wider range of plastics and foil including yoghurt pots and ready meal trays after Craven District Council switched to a new recycling company.

From now on, people will be able to dispose of foil containers and trays, clean aluminium foil, and plastic ready meal trays, as long as they are not black. Also able to go in blue recycling bins are yoghurt and jelly pots, margarine and ice-cream tubs, fruit and vegetable punnets, cream, soup and sauce pots, and also clear bubble wrap - often used to wrap mail order goods.

The changes, which are being detailed in stickers being placed on blue bins in the next few weeks, including information on what can still not be disposed of, have been made possible after the council started sending waste to JB Recycling’s Material Recycling Facility Processing Plant in Hartlepool.

Councillor Carl Lis, the council’s spokesman on ‘greener Craven’, said: “We’re delighted that we can offer residents an even better service and we hope this will lead to an increase in the amount of waste we recycle in the district.

“We all have a responsibility to try to reduce the amount of waste that is sent to landfill or incinerated, reduce the need to use more natural resources, and save on energy consumption.”

Cllr Lis added: “Each household produces around a tonne of rubbish every year and this amount is increasing. We need to recycle more – we can’t continue to landfill or burn rubbish forever. I would urge all residents to read the new information carefully and do their best to recycle as much as possible.”

Even though the range of items able to be recycled has increased, people will still not be able to recycle black plastic of any kind, any bagged waste or food waste. Also, paint tins or wallpaper, toys, garden furniture, bin liners, cling film or plastic film. Also non-recyclable sill, are food wrappers, crisp packets or tubes, books and the plastic liners of cereal packets.

Information included in the stickers also reminds householders to wash and squash their items, and that bottle tops should be placed back on plastic bottles before placing in the bin.

Craven households throw away over 20,000 tonnes of rubbish each year. Between April and December last year, just more than 44 per cent of rubbish thrown away was recycled. North Yorkshire needs to recycle half of all its waste by 2020. More information and a copy of the information sticker is available on the council website: cravendc.gov.uk/recycling