Understanding Symbols for a Greener Future
Welcome to the Eco Icon Glossary! This page is designed to help you understand the meanings behind various eco-friendly, sustainability, and recycling icons. Whether you’re navigating product labels or exploring sustainability-focused content, this guide will empower you with the knowledge to make informed and environmentally conscious choices.
Are Eco-friendly and Sustainability or Harvested the same thing?
- Eco-friendly is all about making choices that are kinder to the environment right now compared to their conventional or traditional counterparts. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean they are sustainable in the long run. Environmentally friendly initiatives take small, thoughtful steps to reduce harm but may not quite be the entire solution.
- Sustainability is a broader concept that includes eco-friendly initiatives but goes beyond them—it’s also about finding a balance between our social and economic needs and the environment’s ability to support us in the long run. And unlike environmentally friendly practices, sustainable initiatives aim not just to reduce harm but also to preserve resources and guarantee the planet’s long-term health

Sustainable
Sustainability is a broader concept that includes eco-friendly initiatives but goes beyond them—it’s also about finding a balance between our social and economic needs and the environment’s ability to support us in the long run. And unlike environmentally friendly practices, sustainable initiatives aim not just to reduce harm but also to preserve resources and guarantee the planet’s long-term health
Examples:
Life on land: Planting trees to help protect the environment. Responsible consumption and production: Recycling items such as paper, plastic, glass and aluminium.
Recycled
Recycling, recovery and reprocessing of waste materials for use in new products. The basic phases in recycling are the collection of waste materials, their processing or manufacture into new products, and the purchase of those products, which may then themselves be recycled
What can be recycled?
Glass:
- Bottles such as wine bottles, jam jars, sauce and spice bottles and plain drinking glasses
- Jars must be clean inside, replace lids, if possible. It does not matter if they have labels on them.
The following cannot be recycled
- Cups and saucers, oven ware, ceramic ware, mirror glass, fluorescent tubes, light bulbs, windscreens, car lights, window panes, laboratory glass and wire reinforced glass
- Light bulbs etc can be deposited in bins outside various supermarkets/hardware stores.
Cans:
- Beverage cans, such as cool drink and beer cans.
- Food cans but they need to be clean. Labels do not need to be removed.
- Aerosol cans.
- Paint cans
Paper & cardboard:
- Office paper: Includes printer paper, writing paper, schoolbooks, envelopes.
- Cardboard: Includes cardboard boxes, cereal boxes, cardboard dividers, egg boxes, toilet roll inners, any other cardboard packaging
- Newspapers
- Magazines & flyers
- Books: reading books, phone books, old school books, etc.
(Books that are still in good condition can be donated) - Long Life Cartons: drain or rinse if used for milk and juice
The following cannot be recycled
- Plasticized paper, laminated paper
- Photographs and overheads
- Waxed and grease proof paper
- Carbon paper
- Adhesive Tape
- Tissues and serviettes for hygienic reasons
Plastic:
Most kinds of plastic. Here are some examples:
- Most plastic containers such as cool drink and water bottles, cleaning product bottles, milk bottles, yoghurt pots, margarine and ice cream tubs (usually numbers 1, 2, or 5)
- Soft plastic bags and packaging
- Cling wrap, pallet wrap and bubble wrap
- Crackly shopping bags
- Chunky, white polystyrene (such as used to package electronic items)
- Plastic items such as garden chairs, buckets, flower pots.
- Some trays used to package fruit and vegetables (but not if made of PET or black polystyrene)
The following cannot be recycled
- Black soft plastic
- Black rigid trays
- Black polystyrene trays
- White polystyrene trays, containers, cups
- Plastic trays made from PET (marked with ‘1’ in the triangle)
- Plastic contaminated with oil, paint or glue, or plastic bonded with paper such as laminated paper
- Plastic items containing metal parts (like screws) which cannot easily be removed
- Chip packets, tea bag wrap and many biscuit wrappers
Other items that can be recycled:
- Clothing
- Used printer cartridges
- Large batteries, e.g. those from gate motors, alarm systems
- Electronic Waste: Any broken electrical equipment such as irons, microwaves, washing machines or computer equipment
- Aluminium foil, e.g. Pie plates, some yoghurt seals, foil food wrap
- Any craft materials such as wool, cotton, material scraps, beads, greeting cards, etc.
- Used cooking oil for manufacturing bio fuel. (Please put in a screw top, plastic bottle any size and ensure it is closed tightly as a leak will contaminate the rest of your recycling)
- Old X-Rays
- Any office stationery that can be reused, e.g. lever arch files, file dividers, storage containers
The following cannot be recycled
- Cassette and video tapes
- Domestic batteries such as torch batteries (these can be deposited to safe disposal at some shopping centres)
- Rubber
- Vinyl
- Items made from mixed plastics and/or other materials, e.g. toothbrushes, pens, some toys
- Wooden items (unless in the form of office shelving ☺)
Recyclable
Essentially, being recyclable means an object can be collected and remanufactured into new products. This should not be confused with being recycled, which means an object has already been collected and remanufactured into a new product. It’s the difference between what something IS and what something CAN BE
90% of the previously mentioned top 10 items to recycle benefit the environment when recycled, but they require a bit of research to fully understand how to properly dispose of the recyclable materials. For instance, paper was mentioned as one of the best things to recycle – but it cannot be recycled if it’s wet.
Bioplastics
Bioplastics are plastic materials produced from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable fats and oils, corn starch and rice starch, straw, woodchips, sawdust, recycled food waste, etc. Some bioplastics are obtained by processing directly from natural biopolymers including polysaccharides (e.g., starch, cellulose, chitosan, and alginate) and proteins (e.g., soy protein, gluten, and gelatin), while others are chemically synthesized from sugar derivatives (e.g., lactic acid) and lipids (oils and fats) from either plants or animals, or biologically generated by fermentation of sugars or lipids.[2] In contrast, common plastics, such as fossil-fuel plastics (also called petro-based polymers) are derived from petroleum or natural gas.
From auto parts to apparel to construction and building materials to electronics, many of the products we use and rely on every day can be made from plants
Biodegradable
Biodegradation is the breakdown of organic matter by microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi. It is generally assumed to be a natural process, which differentiates it from composting. Composting is a human-driven process in which biodegradation occurs under a specific set of circumstances
An example of biodegradable
Biodegradable material generally includes wood, wool, cotton, animal waste or any other organic material which can be broken down into carbon dioxide, methane or any other simple organic molecules with the help of micro-organisms. They are often referred to as ‘Bio-waste
Organic
Not using artificial chemicals in the growing of plants and animals for food and other products:
Examples of organic material include:
100% Cotton, wool, cork. wood, feathers, leather, bamboo spices, coffee, tea, spices and sawdust to mention a few .