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If you help with recycling at home or school you might have noticed it's not always straight forward.

Confusion over what can and can't be recycled can lead to 'wishcycling'; when items end up in recycling bins that cannot be recycled - because the items don't meet the right requirements to be recycled.

Wishcycling is a problem. Non-recyclable items mixed in with recyclable ones cause contamination. This can prevent all the materials in a bin or lorry from being recycled which leads to more waste.

The government wants to combat the problem saying that this summer it will be revealing a plan to help make recycling more straight forward.

So what are some examples of items that you should avoid putting in the recycling bin? Check out our list below.

This one's requires you to carry out a bit of an inspection. Whether you can recycle a pizza box is all down to how dirty the packaging is once you're done.

If the box is greasy or stained with food, then you aren't able to recycle it and it should go in your general waste bin. However, if the lid is clean, you can tear that part of the box off and recycle it.

Disposable drinking cups are often made of mixed materials like paper and plastic. If this is the case, they can't be recycled as it can be too difficult to separate the materials. However, You can recycle the plastic lid!

Also, some restaurants can recycle the cups as they are collected separately and sent to a special factory.

If you're on washing up duty and accidentally smash a glass, the very first thing to do is to tell a grown up as broken glass can be dangerous!

Grown ups should put broken drinking glasses in the general waste in as opposed to the recycling. It's because this glass doesn't melt at the same temperature as the bottles and jars which go in your glass recycling.

Tubes for crisps are made of mixed materials and so these can't be recycled without being separated first, which can be tricky. Crisp packets also can't be recycled at home.

However waste management company TerraCycle does have a snack packet recycling programme with drop off points around the UK. Some supermarkets also accept soft plastic recycling.

If you do have crisp packets, you can save them up and take them to your nearest drop off point.

Not all plastic toys can be recycled, so if you've broken one of yours and can't repair it, then sadly, it'll have to go into your general waste bin.

However, once again, some companies are providing ways for customers to recycle their old toys which may be worth looking into before you throw your old toys away.