A lot more waste can be recycled than most people realise. Most households can easily recycle over 70% of their waste using existing services. 

Reducing what you waste is a great way to reduce your impact on the environment. 

From thinking differently about what you buy, re-using items that haven't reached the end of their life, to recycling as much as possible and composting at home. To reduce our impact on the environment, and to prevent waste from unnecessarily going into landfill, there are things we can all do in our daily lives to make a difference. 

Simple steps to help us all recycle more:

• Double check if anything you are going to throw in the rubbish bin can be recycled instead – either at home in your recycling bins/boxes or at your local recycling centre
• Rinse out empty food and drink containers before you recycle them
• Squash plastic bottles and flatten cardboard boxes so you can fit more in your recycling bin
• If its plastic and bottle shaped it can be recycled – don’t forget the shampoo, spray cleaner and bleach bottles from your bathroom
• It is not just newspapers that you can recycle – we want wrapping paper, envelopes, toilet roll tubes and toothpaste boxes
• It might help you to get a second bin or box in your kitchen and bathroom for collecting things to recycle from around the house, before you put them into your main recycling bin 

We can all significantly reduce the waste we generate by:

• Reducing what we use, especially single-use plastics and paper
• Reuse wherever possible
• Where reduction and reuse are not possible, recycle everything we can

Reduce

Everything we produce and consume has an impact on the environment in some way. The ‘Three Rs of Recycling’, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, refers to ways we can minimise the amount of materials that we use.

Reducing your consumption is the best and most important way of minimising your impact on the environment. 

Examples of things you can do:

• Don’t buy items you don’t need and only replace items when they can no longer be used or are beyond repair.
• If an item is damaged, try to repair the item rather than replacing it. For example, clothes and electronics can often be repaired.
• Don’t buy items with excessive packaging especially those packaged in plastic.
• Choose to walk, cycle or take public transport instead of using a car.
• Hang washing out rather using a tumble dryer.
• Buy second hand or recycled products.

Reuse

If you have an item that you can no longer use or do not want, but is still in a usable condition, try to find a way that it can continue to be used rather than throwing it away.

Examples of things you can do:

• Sell the item on one of the many available online shopping forums.
• Give it to a friend or freecycle it.
• Donate the item to a charity shop.
• Upcycle the item.

Recycle

Recycling is to break down an item and make something new from the materials. The process of recycling items still uses energy, so ideally they should only be recycled, if there is no other way they can be reused or repaired.

Examples of things you can do:

• Compost your garden waste and fruit and vegetable scraps or, if you have subscribed to the collection service, use your green bin.
• Put recyclable items in your recycle bin or take them to a household waste recycling centre.
• Buy second hand or recycled products.

Battery recycling     

Lots of items around the home and office have batteries hidden or embedded in them.

Items like toys, toothbrushes, remote controls, mobile phones, and e-cigarettes, vapes, and doorbells may have batteries.

Batteries need to be disposed of in the right way because they contain chemicals that are hazardous to the environment.

Lithium batteries can be a fire hazard when they are not recycled. Batteries put into household bins can cause fires at home, in lorries or at your local waste sites

Do not put batteries directly in your rubbish or recycling bins - they can cause fires.!

You can dispose of batteries at:

• Shops & Supermarkets
• Bin Collections (ask your bin man - some councils provide the service)
• Local Recycling Centres
• Waste Collection Companies (like cheapwastedisposal.co.uk!)

Remember.. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Everything!