We study geometric properties of the infinite random lattice called the uniform infinite planar quadrangulation or UIPQ. We establish a precise form of a conjecture of Krikun stating that the minimal size of a cycle that separates the ball of radius $R$ centered at the root vertex from infinity grows linearly in $R$. As a consequence, we derive certain isoperimetric bounds showing that the boundary size of any connected set $A$ consisting of a finite union of faces of the UIPQ and containing the root vertex is bounded below by a (random) constant times $|A|^{1/4}(\log|A|)^{-(3/4)-δ}$, where the volume $|A|$ is the number of faces in $A$.