They are the frustrating items that can't go in your recycling bin and end up in landfill.

SUMMER salads and cold sandwiches no longer cut the packed lunch mustard –  so it’s time to turn the heat up. Thanks to insulated pots and stay-warm mugs, you can keep just about anything hot enough until lunchtime. RECYCLE food containers and plastic water bottles, thanks to TerraCycle’s new programme with food container firm Sistema, allowing households to recycle these items if they aren’t picked up by councils.

TerraCycle has launched the UK’s first free recycling programme for any brand of food storage containers and reusable plastic water bottles, which it says allows households to recycle these hard-to-recycle items.

Anyone can sign-up to the programme and be awarded points for each item they send in to be recycled. These points are redeemable as monetary donations to fund good causes including charities, community initiatives, and schools. The recycling programme has been set up by TerraCycle in collaboration with Sistema – a manufacturer of food storage containers and reusable bottles. It has been designed to give well-used food storage containers and reusable plastic water bottles a second life after use.

A KIND-HEARTED Hayling Island woman has raised more than £130 for charity by collecting and recycling ‘unrecyclable’ items from the community.

London residents and the surrounding areas can celebrate Zero Waste Week by signing up to recycle “unrecyclable” items – including cheese packaging, cleaning product packaging, hair care empties and beauty products – whilst raising money for their chosen good cause in the process. The recycling programmes are run by TerraCycle and are free to sign up to. By signing up, residents can either collect and send in their waste to be recycled, or they can set up a public drop-off location and become recycling champions for their communities.

A group helping communities make money for charity from hard to recycle items is on the lookout for first time waste heroes Belfast. TerraCycle is funded by well-known brands who pay the cost of giving packaging a second life as well as monetary donations to good causes. But they have also helped save millions of items from landfill, incineration or ending up in the natural environment.

Anda Phillips, a DWT volunteer and community coordinator, signed up to the snappily-titled KP Snacks, Nuts, Popcorn, Crisps and Pretzels Packet Free Recycling Programme – a partnership between KP Snacks and TerraCycle, a company that specialises in recycling hard-to-recycle materials.

Nields School in Slaithwaite has raised more than £500 for the school’s charity by collecting and recycling “unrecyclable” items from the community. The items collected include cheese packaging, toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes, Pringles tubes, writing instruments and much more. Once dropped off at the school, the items are sent to TerraCycle for recycling, the world leader in recycling hard-to-recycle waste.

The contact lens recycling scheme that we use is the one facilitated by Johnson & Johnson Vision (JJV). It was the first scheme of its kind that I’d heard about. They were providing the boxes for free at the time, and arranging the collection, so we didn’t have to do anything other than order the boxes as and when we needed them, and of course arrange for collection when the box was full of lenses. Whenever we fill the box, we just email TerraCycle, JJV’s partner in the programme.

Win On Waste collects a range of items from the local community that the council doesn’t include in its kerbside recycling collections, meaning these items are otherwise destined for landfill or incineration. Once collected the items are sent to TerraCycle, the world leader in recycling hard-to-recycle waste.