By Catherine Somerville of Sustainable Wallingford

I am often asked what to do with a specific item – 'can it go in the green bin? I want to keep it out of landfill' and so on.

Here are some answers from South Oxfordshire District Council’s website – cut out and keep this list.

SODC is now issuing a ‘wheel’ to show what goes where.

In the GREEN bin, put the following if you can’t find another use for it:

Books, catalogues, phone directories, cereal boxes, corrugated cardboard, envelopes (including window envelopes), greetings cards, junk mail, magazines, newspapers, shredded paper, tissue boxes, toilet roll tubes (unless you use them for seedling pots), writing paper.

Mixed glass bottles and jars - any colour. Bottle tops too, but take them off the bottles.

All plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays, but not the film.

Aerosols, clean foil, clean food tins, clean steel and aluminium food and drink cans, metal lids from bottles and jars.

Small electrical items. If working but unwanted, take to Sue Ryder and Style Acre charity shops in Wallingford. Must have a plug and CE mark. If broken, try your local repair cafe. If not repairable, tie up in a carrier bag - put out beside your GREY bin.

That applies to broken toasters, kettles, irons, hairdryers, drills, radios, small electronic toys, telephones, power tools, hair straighteners, shavers, clocks and alarms.

If you have worn-out clothes, bedsheets, duvet covers or curtains, even ripped and stained ones, tie up in a carrier bag and put out beside your GREEN bin.

Batteries. Go to to Waitrose, Champions or any other place selling lots of them. They provide a receptacle for used batteries. Or pop them into a clear plastic bag and put out on top of your GREEN bin. This applies to 6v, 9v, D, C, AA, AAA and button batteries.

Bread wrappers, carrier bags and some clean frozen food bags can be put in the plastic bag container in Waitrose.

Crisp packets (only Walkers and Quavers) can be taken to Sportswize In St Mary’s Street.

Baby food pouches, any brand, take to Paddocks Pre-school behind Wallingford hospital.

Any business, office, church or school can become a collection point for hard-to-recycle items. Look on terracycle.co.uk

Finally, this video by Biffa shows what they do with your recycling: youtu.be/L/j5qzUAGJfA.