Privacy policy
Recycle This app · Last updated 10 October 2026
Recycle This is an Android app that tells you which bin an item goes in, or where to take it, using your council's rules. This policy explains what data the app uses, why, who else sees it, and your rights. We've kept it as plain as we can.
1. Who we are
Recycle This is run by Sustainable Design Studio Ltd, which is the data controller for the personal data described here. You can contact us about privacy at contact@sustainabledesign.studio. We have not appointed a data protection officer.
2. The short version
- There are no accounts. We don't ask for your name or email address.
- Your postcode, council, history and reminders stay on your phone.
- When you scan, your photo is sent to our server so Google's Gemini AI can work out what the item is. Unless you turn it off, we keep the photo (with location data removed) to help Recycle This recognise items better. It's stored in the UK, never sold or used for advertising, and deleted after two years. You can turn this off, or delete your photos, in Settings.
- The app shows ads from Google AdMob. Google asks for your consent before using your data to personalise ads.
- We don't sell personal data. There's no separate analytics or crash reporting in the app.
3. What we use, why, and who sees it
| What | Why | Lawful basis | Who else sees it |
|---|---|---|---|
| A photo you take or choose to scan | To identify the item and give you the answer | Legitimate interests: providing the service you asked for | Google (Firebase and the Gemini API), as our processors |
| Your scan photo, kept with the answer (unless you turn this off) | To train Recycle This to recognise items better | Legitimate interests, with your right to object at any time | Google (Firebase Cloud Storage, London), as our processor. Nobody outside Recycle This can read the photos |
| An anonymous app ID and a daily scan count | To apply fair daily limits and keep the service secure | Legitimate interests: security and preventing abuse | Google (Firebase), as our processor |
| A check that requests come from the genuine app | To stop misuse of our server | Legitimate interests: security | Google (Play Integrity and Firebase App Check), as our processors |
| Your postcode, or your phone's location if you choose "Use my location" | To find your council | Legitimate interests: providing local answers | postcodes.io, as our processor. The postcode and council are kept on your phone only |
| Your postcode and chosen address, for bin days | To fetch your collection days from your council | Legitimate interests: providing the bin-day feature you asked for | Your council's own website or its supplier, which receives the request directly from your phone and acts independently of us |
| Anonymous feedback: thumbs up or down, places you suggest, answers with nowhere local to take an item, and taps on "Ask your councillors" | To find wrong answers and gaps in coverage, and improve the service | Legitimate interests | Google (Firebase), as our processor |
| Advertising ID and device information | To show ads and, with your consent, personalise and measure them | Consent for personalised ads and for using the advertising ID; otherwise non-personalised ads | Google AdMob, which acts as an independent controller for advertising |
| Your "Remove ads" purchase | To process the purchase and remove ads | Contract | Google Play Billing |
4. More detail
Photos and the AI
A photo leaves your phone only when you scan. Our server sends it to Google's Gemini API, which works out what the item is, and the answer comes back to you. We use Google's paid Gemini API, under which Google doesn't use the content to train its own models. The AI only identifies the item. The answer about which bin it goes in comes from council and national rules, not from the AI.
Keeping scan photos to improve Recycle This
Before your first photo scan, the app shows a notice explaining that Recycle This keeps the photos you scan, with the answer, to train it to recognise items better. You can choose "Turn off" there, or turn it off at any time in Settings. Nothing is kept until you've seen the notice and tapped OK.
If it's on, our server keeps the photo in Google Cloud Storage in London. Before storing it, we remove the photo's hidden metadata (EXIF, XMP, IPTC and comments), which is where any GPS location would be. We keep it with your anonymous app ID, the AI's answer (the item, its confidence and name), the app and model version, the date, and, if you correct the answer or mark it right, the item you chose. Nobody outside Recycle This can read these photos. They're never sold, never used for advertising and never passed to the ad network.
Please don't photograph people or personal papers. Photos are of the item you want to get rid of, but a photo can sometimes show something in the background.
Anonymous feedback
When you tap thumbs up or down on an answer, suggest a place, see an answer with nowhere local to take the item, or tap "Ask your councillors", the app sends a small message to our server. It contains the council, the item and the app version (and, for a thumbs vote, whether you chose a house or flat and your area within the council). It contains no postcode, photo, location or message. We add it to a running total for that council and item. The totals hold no ID and no record of who sent what.
Place suggestions are stored exactly as you type them (the place's name, and an optional town or address), with the council, item, app version and date, but no ID. Please don't include personal details. We read suggestions by hand to check them.
To stop abuse, our server also keeps a daily count of these messages, and a once-a-day marker for the "nowhere local" and "Ask your councillors" counts. Both are kept under a scrambled (hashed) version of your anonymous app ID and aren't linked to any total or suggestion.
"Ask your councillors"
This button opens WriteToThem, a free service run by the charity mySociety, in your phone's browser. We don't send WriteToThem your postcode or any message. The only thing we pass is our website's address, so mySociety can see where visitors came from. You type your own postcode and message on WriteToThem, and we never see either. WriteToThem is independent of us and has its own privacy policy.
Location, bin days and reminders
To find your council, the app sends your postcode (or your phone's location, only if you tap "Use my location") to postcodes.io. Your postcode and council are then kept on your phone only. For councils where the app can look up bin days, your postcode and chosen address go directly from your phone to that council's website or its supplier. Reminders are notifications set on your phone. There's no push-notification server.
History
Your recent scans and answers are stored on your phone only. You can clear them in Settings.
Ads
The free app shows ads from Google AdMob on the Home and Bin days screens. Before showing personalised ads, Google's consent form asks for your permission to use your device's advertising ID and other device information to personalise and measure ads. If you don't agree, you'll see non-personalised ads. You can change your choice at any time in the app under Settings, Privacy options. You can also reset or delete your advertising ID in your phone's Android settings (Settings, Privacy, Ads). Recycle This never passes your postcode, council, photos or scanned items to the ad network. Google's use of data for ads is explained in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services.
If you buy "Remove ads", Google Play handles the payment. We don't receive your payment details.
5. Where your data is processed
Our own server, database and photo storage are in Google Cloud's London region. Some of the Google services we use (the Gemini API, AdMob, Google Play and Play Integrity) may process data outside the UK, including in the United States. Where data is transferred, Google relies on legal safeguards for UK transfers, such as the UK–US data bridge or the UK addendum to standard contractual clauses.
6. How long we keep it
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Photos you scan with sharing turned off | Not stored by us |
| Photos kept to improve Recycle This | Two years, or until you delete them in Settings (deletion completes within 7 days) |
| Daily scan count | 7 days |
| Place suggestions | Two years |
| Feedback daily count and once-a-day marker | 7 days and 2 days |
| Feedback totals (no personal data) | For as long as they're useful |
| Postcode, council, history and reminder settings | On your phone, until you clear them or uninstall the app |
7. What's required and what's optional
You need to give a postcode, or allow your location, to get answers for your council. Scanning needs a photo, but you can type the item instead. Personalised ads and keeping scan photos are both your choice, and the app works the same either way.
8. Your rights
Under UK data protection law you have the right to access your personal data, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict or object to how we use it, to data portability, and to withdraw consent at any time.
- Scan photos: you can object at any time by turning off Settings, Scan photos, and delete what we kept with "Delete my shared photos". Deletion completes within 7 days. The photos are linked to the anonymous ID of your current installation, so if you've uninstalled and reinstalled the app, photos from the earlier installation can't be matched to you. They'll be deleted automatically after two years.
- Ads: change your consent in Settings, Privacy options.
- Everything on your phone: clear it in Settings or uninstall the app.
To use any other right, email contact@sustainabledesign.studio. We'll reply within one month. Because Recycle This has no accounts, we don't know your name, so we may need something from the app to find your data, such as the wording of a place you suggested. Feedback totals and suggestions carry no ID, so we can't link them to you, but we'll remove a suggestion if you tell us what it said.
9. Complaints
If you're unhappy with how we've used your data, please tell us first. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: ico.org.uk, telephone 0303 123 1113.
10. Children
Recycle This isn't intended for children under 13. If you're a parent and think a child under 13 has used it, email us and we'll help remove any data we hold.
11. Automated decisions
The AI identifies the item in a photo. It doesn't make any decision about you that has legal or similarly significant effects.
12. Cookies and this website
This page sets no cookies and loads nothing from third parties.
13. Changes to this policy
If we change how Recycle This uses data, we'll update this page and the date at the top.
14. Contact
Sustainable Design Studio Ltd · contact@sustainabledesign.studio