Our residents do a great job at recycling, but all that hard work could be wasted if the wrong items are put in the blue bins.

This could spoil a whole lorry load of recycling, be dangerous and unpleasant for people who sort it, and waste taxpayers’ money.

Here's a guide to what items you shouldn't put in your blue wheelie bin at home, and what you should do with them.

Please make sure that all recycling is loose (not in bags), and clean - rinsing food containers/jars in your used washing up water should do.

Not in your bin:

None of these items can be recycled, so please put them in your black wheelie bin or take to the household waste recycling centre.

• Plastic film eg bubble wrap, magazine wrapping, lids from food trays
• Crisp and biscuit packets/sweet wrappers
• Polystyrene eg packaging, takeaway food trays
• Foil pouches eg pet food, coffee
• Pringle tubs
• Wallpaper
• Nappies and general waste

The following items can be recycled, but not in your blue bin:

Plastic bags - can be recycled at Sainsbury, Morrisons and Marks and Spencer in Chesterfield. Many supermarkets are offering soft plastic recycling - find out more here.

Food waste - this can go into your green wheelie bin along with any garden waste.

Hard plastics eg coat hangers, buckets, toys - these can be taken to the Household Waste Recycling Centre; some supermarkets may recycle coat hangers, check in store. Remember that most plastic bottles, pots and containers can go into your blue bin.

Metal items eg pans, baking trays - these can be recycled at the Household Waste Recycling Centre which accepts a wide range of metal items.

Food and drink cartons and Tetra Pak® eg fruit juice cartons - these can be recycled at the Chesterfield household waste recycling centre; some supermarkets may also have recycling banks for you to recycle these types of containers.

Textiles eg clothes, bedding - good quality, clean items can be donated to local charity shops, animal rescue centres or placed in textile banks; some accept poorer quality items as long as they are clean as they can be recycled into other products. Textiles can also be recycled at the household waste recycling centre. Wet and dirty items, if they can't be cleaned, should be disposed of in your black wheelie bin.

Not in your glass caddy:

Your black box/caddy is for clean glass bottles and jars only. Please don't put these other glass items in - they can't be recycled as they melt at different temperatures to the jars and bottles.

Pyrex and drinking glasses, microwave plates, window glass - none of this glass waste can be recycled, so please put it into your black wheelie bin or take it to the household waste recycling centre.

Light bulbs - unbroken light bulbs and fluorescent tubes can be recycled at the household waste recycling centre. Broken light bulbs should be wrapped carefully and put into your black wheelie bin.

Full glass jars, bottles and other food containers - please empty out all food/liquids, and rinse before recycling.

It's also important to keep the glass bottles and jars in the glass caddy separate from the other recycling in the main part of your blue bin.

 Find out what you CAN put in your blue bin.

Common myth - there's no point separating your recycling as it all gets mixed together in the lorry anyway

This isn't true - our refuse collection vehicles (RCV) have separate compartments close together within the vehicle, so it can look like all your recycling is being mixed together, but the glass is actually going into a different compartment from the rest of the recycling.

Our crews use a separate bin for glass, the glass from your caddy is emptied into this  before being tipped into the glass compartment of the RCV. This might make it look like your recycling is all being mixed together when in fact they're kept separate.

Recyclable waste is processed at special recycling centres where materials such as paper, cardboard, cans and plastics are sorted by machines and by hand. The separated materials are bought by companies who can make them into new products.

See more recycling myth busters on the Derbyshire County Council website.

You can also find out more about reducing, reusing or recycling your waste in the Derbyshire County Council A to Z of recycling.