If you have boxes, it doesn't matter which colour box you use for which items, as long as the items are sorted correctly. So you can put your paper and cardboard in either the green or the black box, as long as you put the plastics, glass and cans in your other box.

If you have wheeled bins for recycling:

• Grey wheelie bin (red lid) – for mixed recyclables, plastics, cans, glass etc
• Grey wheelie bin (yellow lid) – for paper and cardboard

• You can order replacement bins and boxes
• Please note that a service charge applies

Any extra paper and cardboard can be placed in an untied carrier bag alongside your recycling bins/boxes. Any extra foil, cans and plastic bottles (but not glass) can be placed in a separate carrier bag. Glass must always be placed in the recycling bins/boxes.

Clean and dry textiles for recycling can be put out in clearly labelled carrier bags (not black bags) alongside your recycling boxes.

No duvets, pillows, cushions or shoes please.

Not in your recycling bins/boxes. Tetra Paks (juice cartons) can be taken to the recycling sites at Auction Mart car park (Lancaster), Salt Ayre Household Waste Recycling Centre (Lancaster), Morecambe town hall, The Greyhound (Halton) and Keer Bridge HWRC (Carnforth).

All glass bottles, including food and sauce jars, medicine bottles, perfume and aftershave, moisturiser containers and glass make-up containers. Also don’t forget about other bottles in your kitchen such as spice jars, oil bottles and baby food jars which can also be recycled.

Plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays. Anything with the number 1, 2 or 5 inside the recycling triangle on the plastic article can be put in your bins/boxes.

Yes - you can recycle plastic bottle tops.

Yes, broken glass can be placed in the recycling bins/boxes as the crew do not need to separate the items by hand. Only broken glass bottles and jars please - drinking glasses, pyrex, mirrors and windows are not recyclable in your recycling bins/boxes.

Yes, clean foil should be placed in the same bins/boxes as tin cans, glass and plastics. If you are unsure as to whether it is foil or not do the scruch test. If the items stays scruched it is foil, if it springs back it is not foil.

Preferably yes, although larger pieces of cardboard will be collected, as long as it is flattened and put alongside the recycling bins/boxes.

How to order bins, boxes and bags

In the paper and cardboard bin/box:

• Gift wrap
• Birthday and Christmas cards
• Toilet roll and kitchen roll tubes
• Shredded paper
• Catalogues and holiday brochures
• Telephone directories including yellow pages
• Envelopes (no need to remove the windows)

In the glass, cans and plastic bottles bin/box:

• Aerosols
• Cleaning product bottles
• Clean foil
• Perfume and aftershave bottles
• Shampoo, conditioner and shower gel bottles
• Sweet and biscuit tins

1. Recycling is placed out in recycling bins/boxes by residents for collection
2. The recycling is collected by Lancaster City Council collection vehicles
3. Once the collection vehicle is full the recycling is delivered to a transfer station at Middleton
4. Here recycling is loaded into larger vehicles and taken to a sorting facility in Leyland
5. At Leyland the recycling is sorted and then sent onto various recycling companies to be turned into new products