Pringles tubes and Lucozade Sport bottles are the “villains” of the recycling world, a trade body has said.

The Recycling Association named them in a list of products that pose the biggest challenges for reuse.

The greater the number of materials used in packaging, the harder it is for recycling machines to separate them.

The distinctive Pringles packaging – with its metal base, plastic cap, metal tear-off lid, and foil-lined cardboard sleeve – was said to be a “nightmare”.

Lucozade’s bottle is recyclable but it is enclosed in a sleeve made from a different kind of plastic.

A $2m (£1.5m) prize for inventors to devise products that are practical and easily recycled will be launched by Prince Charles in London later.

Simon Ellin, CEO of the UK Recycling Association, welcomed the competition, adding: “Improvements are desperately needed in product design.”