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This is Islington Friends of the Earth's community resource on recycling in the borough.

It will be updated on a regular basis and will include information on what to do with those hard to recycle items such as tetrapaks, etc.

We will also post information about the recycling trail in Islington - just what does happen to the contents of your green box once it is picked up from your doorstep.

We welcome your comments - so if you have any questions or concerns about recycling locally which you would like to share, please post your comment. Log in regularly for updates.

Here are some sources for recycling more obscure things like tetrapaks, drinks cartons and brita water filters...

Drinks cartons:

http://www.drinkscartons.com/

Polythene bags and mail wrappers
This includes both printed and unprinted polythene
wrappers and bags. Things like:

• Vegetable bags
• Supermarket bags
• Mailing wrappers
• Bread bags
• Multipack wrappers
• Six-pack rings

The polythene items may be marked with a recycling symbol containing the numbers '2' or '4' and/or the letters 'HDPE', high-density polyethylene, or LDPE, low-density polyethylene. Please note that polythene marked as 'degradable' cannot be recycled. It is very important that it doesn't get mixed up with ordinary polythene. All polythene items must be free of paper,
food, sticky tape etc before they can be recycled.

Please send by post (postage must be paid) to

Polyprint Mailing Films Ltd
Mackintosh Road
Rackheath Industrial Estate
Rackheath
Norwich NR13 6LJ

Polyprint runs this operation at a loss but continues
to offer this service to the community and to help our
environment.

For more on this service visit Polyprint's website at http://www.polyprint.co.uk/recycling.html

Drinks cartons

'Tetrapaks' containing drinks, soup, fabric conditioner etc, are made of plastic, aluminium and card and there are fewer recycling facilities. A company in Fife used to recycle them but they went out of business in June 2006.

Tetrapak themselves (http://www.tetrapakrecycling.co.uk/) are working with local authorities across the country to provide local recycling facilities. There is none in Islington at the moment. If you would like to see such a scheme locally, visit http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/drinks/council.htm for a template letter you can send to the local council.

In general, however, it is best to avoid purchasing products in this type of packaging.

Brita water filters

If you feel you need to filter your tap water, the filters from the water jugs that need replacing every month no longer need to be thrown away. Reusable parts are reconditioned and all the other components are recycled by Brita. Please send your filters to:

BRITA RECYCLING
FREEPOST NAT17876
Bicester, OX26 4BR.

For more on recycling water filters visit: http://www.brita.net/uk/faqs_household.html?&L=1