A to Z of reusing, recycling and waste disposal

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Please do not pour engine oil down the drain. To recycle your engine oil, please take it to your nearest recycling centre and put it in the used engine oil container. It will be used to create bio-diesel or as a fuel in an energy from waste facility.

You can take your fluorescent tubes to your nearest recycling centre. Please put them in the appropriate collection container. These will be recycled and the mercury that they contain will be recovered.

Please see Aluminium Foil

Try to reduce the amount of food waste that you produce by planning meals, making your portions smaller (if you tend to throw away a lot of cooked food) and freezing spare portions. You can compost your vegetable peelings and cooked food in your compost bin (but not meat and fish). Food waste can't be put in your brown bin as it may have been subject to pesticides which could contaminate the rest of the waste. For tips on how to reduce the amount of food waste you produce, recipe ideas, shopping lists and menus please see the Love Food Hate Waste website. Residents in the Rothwell area can put all their food waste in their food waste bin for weekly collection.

Most charity shops will accept them. Alternatively why not keep them to pass on to friends and relatives for their holidays.

If your fridge or freezer is in working order, please consider donating it to a local re-use organisation. If it does not work, please take it to your local recycling centre and leave it in the designated storage area. Ask the site staff if you don't know where this is. If you are unable to take your fridge or freezer to your local recycling centre, you can book a bulky waste collection online. Fridges and freezers will be sent to a recycling plant where harmful CFC gases will be removed for incineration. The plastics and metals will be recycled into new products.

If your unwanted furniture is good enough to be used by others, donate it to a local re-use organisation. Mattresses, armchairs and sofas should all have a fire label, and be free of stains. You can also take it to the Revive Leeds re-use shop at the Kirkstall or Seacroft recycling centre,. Alternatively, put your furniture in the reuse container at your nearest recycling centre. If your furniture is not good enough to re-use, please take it to your nearest recycling centre. Wooden, MDF and chipboard furniture can be recycled in the timber skip, and metal furniture in the scrap metal skip. Mattresses and other soft furniture should be put in the non-recyclable waste skip. If you are unable to take your furniture to your local recycling centre, you can book a bulky collection online.

Please see Chemicals

Garden Waste includes grass cuttings, clippings, hedge prunings and small branches. The most environmentally friendly way of dealing with your garden waste is to compost the material and return it to the land on the site it was produced. Please see Compost, Composts Bins and Compostable Bags for more information. The best way of managing waste from large hedges, trees and shrubs is to invest in a wood chipper, which allows the production of a mulch material. This can be added to your compost heaps/bins or used directly on your garden as a weed suppressant. Mulch is also very effective at retaining moisture in the soil. By composting and creating mulch, householders even with very large gardens should be able manage their garden waste. We provide fortnightly garden waste collections throughout the growing season to certain areas of the city. Please do not put larger twigs and branches in your brown garden waste bin. You can also take garden waste to your nearest recycling centre. If you are unable to do this, you can request a bulky waste collection online for up to 4 bags of double bagged garden waste or up to 4 bundles of wood and branches (which should not be more than 2m long). Any nails/screws need to be removed. Please note that the service will not collect garden waste if you have a brown garden waste bin.

Gas bottles and cylinders can be extremely dangerous when in the wrong hands, so should not be left around after use. Please do not put unwanted gas cylinders or bottles in your black bin. We do not accept gas cylinders at any of our recycling centres. Most gas bottles and cylinders remain the property of the supplier. The supplier’s name will be printed on the item – the most common ones are Calor, BOC and Flogas. Calor gas bottles can be returned to any Calor stockist. If you have the original receipt, you can claim your deposit back. If you are unable to return them yourself, you can arrange a collection free of charge by calling 0113 307 9050 BOC will collect their cylinders free of charge. Please call 0330 162 1291 to arrange collection. Flogas will collect their cylinders free of charge. Please call 0800 574 574 and hold to arrange collection If you have a gas bottle or cylinder that is unbranded or you are unsure of its contents, you can email a picture of it toemail@synrec.co.uk for identification and advice on disposal or telephone National LPG and Industrial Gas Cylinder recovery on 0800 083 9652.

You can re-use sheets of glass by using them to make row covers (cloches) for gardening. Please do not put sheets of glass into bottle banks. You can dispose of sheet glass by taking it to your nearest recycling centre where you should put it in the non-recyclable waste container. If you are unable to do this you can request a bulky waste collection online. Please wrap the glass sheets to protect our collection crew. This will then be disposed of to landfill.

Washed and clean glass jars can be used again for storing homemade jam, pickles, herbs and other foodstuffs. Wine and beer bottles can be re-used in home brewing. Empty glass bottles and jars of any colour can be placed in your green recycling bin, or taken to a glass bank or recycling centre. Give them a quick rinse first, leave caps and lids on and they'll get recycled too. Glass recycled in green bins and bottle banks is 100% re-melted in Yorkshire and can be back on the shelf as a new bottle or jar within 30 days. Glass items such as light bulbs, drinking glasses and Pyrex containers should not be put into green bins or bottle banks. If these items are good enough to re-use, please take them to your local charity shop. If they are not, wrap them in paper and throw them away in your black rubbish bin.

Many opticians collect unwanted spectacles for re-use in the developing world. Please ask your local optician about this.

Please see Garden Waste.