A binman has warned that if you put one item in your plastic recycling, then it simply will not get taken, urging people to listen to his advice and learn from it
12:03, 19 May 2026Updated 12:03, 19 May 2026
Ashley warned that your bins won’t get taken if you leave something in there (Image: Jam Press/@theno1.binman)
It’s seriously frustrating when you put your bins out, ready to start afresh, and the binmen leave all your rubbish exactly where you left it. However, a lot of the time, when you put the bins out, and they don’t get taken, it’s because you’ve made an error that you may not have realised was the wrong thing to do. Of course, you live, and you learn, but it’s always really frustrating when you have to learn things the hard way.
But one binman has shared that you shouldn’t “be so hard on yourself” if you put this common item in with your recycling, as it’s a mistake many homeowners often make.
Ashley, who posts on social media as @theno1.binman, shared a humorous video explaining that carrier bags should not be going in your recycling under any circumstances.
He wrote over the top of his video: “When the binmen try and tell the pupil that carrier bags are not recyclable in your household recycling bin”.
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The song Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself by Jess Glynne was playing in the background of the video, where the lyrics say: “But I was right, and you were wrong, been telling myself all along. Don’t be so hard on yourself, no, learn to forgive, learn to let go”.
He was probably trying to encourage people to accept when they’ve made a mistake and rectify it in the future, rather than complaining that the binmen haven’t taken the rubbish in their bins away again.
In the comments, someone simply wrote “noooooo,” probably because they’d made this mistake before.
Plastic carrier bags and other ‘soft’ plastics, like bread bags, cling film, and bubble wrap, are generally not taken in curbside recycling because they cause significant technical and operational problems at recycling facilities.
They need to be taken to specific recycling facilities, which can often be found at supermarkets, or you can just reuse them again and again.
The London Borough of Hounslow share that “They tangle in the machinery and cause costly delays,” which is true. The thin, flexible nature of plastic bags causes them to tangle around rotating screens, conveyor belts, and sorting wheels at Materials Recovery Facilities.
This often forces workers to stop production to cut the bags out with sharp knives, causing safety issues and delays that end up costing a lot of money.
Also, standard recycling plants are designed to separate rigid items like bottles, tubs, and jars, which means that plastic bags are too light and thin to be separated properly by this equipment.
And when bags are mixed with other recyclables, they contaminate paper and card bales, making them unsellable.