Black food trays

Black food trays can go in the recycling in north London.

However, sometimes your black plastic trays can get missed at the sorting facility (called a Materials Recovery Facility). This is because it travels on a black conveyor belt and the sorters cannot always identify black plastic sitting on a black conveyor belt. Please do still recycle them at home as, despite these challenges, many do get recycled.

The role of supermarkets and producers

Due to the challenges of recycling black plastic, lots of supermarkets and packaging producers have stopped using it altogether. This step is welcomed by the recycling industry.

The government has put in place 'extended producer responsibility' (opens in a new window) reforms. This will move the full cost of dealing with packaging waste from councils to producers. This reform should encourage producers to make more-easily recyclable packaging because the cost of recycling packaging is less than disposing of it.