Recycling tips

50 Top tips to reduce and reuse

These tips are designed to help you think about new ways to help reduce the amount of waste you produce. Each time you go shopping, or go to print off a document at work it will give you some pause for thought. If you want to watch your bins waste line, even just a little bit, these tips should be able to help you to reduce and reuse more of your waste. 

Shopping

1. Write a shopping list each time you shop so you don’t buy and cook more food than you need.
   
2. Buy a bag for life instead of throwaway plastic carrier bags. 100,000 tonnes of carrier bags are thrown away each year which is the equivalent weight of 70,000 cars, each bag will take over 100 years to decompose.
   
3. Buy you fruit and vegetables loose and use local markets and farm shops when available to support your local economy and farmers.
   
4. Buy longer lasting products such as rechargeable batteries and low energy light bulbs especially for rooms that will be lit for long periods of time.
   
5. Don’t buy disposable items such as camera’s plates, razors or nappies.
   
6. Refill plastic bottles with tap water, rather than buying mineral water or alternatively plastic bottles make perfect cloches to protect tender and young plants in your garden from slugs.
   
7. Buy recycled products where possible, such as computer paper, greeting cards, wrapping paper, toilet paper and bin liners, as well as the more wacky recycled products, visit Amazing Recycled (new window).
   
8. Try to avoid buying over packaged goods in polystyrene and plastic wrapping. Try instead to buy products in no packaging or cardboard or starch based biodegradable packaging that dissolves in water and can be composted.
   
   

9. Reuse unwanted items of furniture, clothing, toys and bric-a-brac to charities, friends, car boot them or list them on Freecycle as one person’s junk is another person’s treasure.
   
   

   Home
   

10. Clear out your attic and garage of long forgotten treasures, don’t forget you could sell it on using numerous internet sites, auctions, send it to a charity shop or hold a garage sale.
    
11. Even your old bathroom suite can be reused, toilets, sinks and pipes are great unusual planters, a sink if sunken into the ground is ideal for mint and other invasive plants.
    
12. Reuse your cardboard tubes and boxes by giving to local nurseries and playgroups for creative play time.
    
13. Have a shower rather than a bath but if you do have a bath, share it, it’s more intimate and saves water.
    
14. Turn your lights off when your not using them.
    
15. Ensure You actually turn your TV’s, DVD’s, VCR’s and computers off standby to save electricity.
    
16. Turn old cards into gift tags, you could even use unusual patterned scissors to create interesting edges or use them to make new cards.
    
17. Reuse old envelopes and jiffy bags by sticking a new label over the address section.
    
18. Use old clothes to turn into other household items such as cushions, cloth bags or tea pot cosies.
    
19. Several charities collect mobile phones and printers cartridges in freepost plastic bags, the following collect both in freepost envelopes, call to request details of how to donate;- SCOPE (0207 6197239), RSPB (01767 680551), Action Aid (0117 3042390), Bliss (0207 73781122) and Oxfam (0870 3332700).
    
20. Donate your magazines when you have finished reading them to your local doctors, dentists, hospital or anywhere with waiting rooms, alternatively pass it onto a friend to read also.
    
21. Disposable nappies take hundreds of years to decompose in landfills and an average baby will get through 6,000 – the same weight as a family car. Try using real cotton or towelling nappies which can be used over and over again, washed by yourself or by a nappy laundry service. Visit out real nappies page for information about the cash back scheme in Bedfordshire.
    
22. Collect stamps off your envelopes and either compost them or donate them to charity, both RNIB and RSPB collect stamps and raise money to put to good use.
    
23. Instead of buying endless toys which will soon be grown out of, try contacting a local toy library who loan toys to parents, grandparents and childminders. Southway Resource Centre, Bedford (01234 359087), Arlesey Under 5’s toy library, Arlesey (01462 732864) and Merry Go Round, Shefford (01462 629313)
    
    

    Kitchen
    

24. Compost vegetable peelings and fruit in your own garden composter as it could remove almost two thirds of our rubbish including paper and card.
    
25. Use paper bags or greaseproof paper to wrap your sandwiches in rather than using clingfilm or foil. If you must use foil, smooth it down and reuse it again another time.
    
26. Reuse plastic pots and containers such as ice cream tubs to store and freeze food.
    
27. Reuse twist ties from food bags to secure loose wires to keep them together.
    
    

    Garden
    

28. Put your wet autumn leaves in a black bin liners and moisten, make some holes in the bag and a year later you will have leafmould which you can use again in your garden.
    
29. Reuse glass jars as storage, you could pour remaining paint from a large tin into a glass jar which also means you can see what colour you have, or put a screw through a jar lid and attach it to the underside of shelves and screw the glass bottom to it for storing screws and nails.
    
30. Reuse your left over bubble wrap to wrap plants through the cold winter months to protect them from frost or save your bubble wrap to re-wrap your presents next Christmas or if you are planning on moving home.
    
31. Hang old CD’s in the garden or allotment as bird scarers, use as coasters or give them to a charity shop.
    
32. Water your garden at night so the water doesn’t evaporate but soaks in.
    
33. Corks are not recyclable, instead reuse them by protecting the end of sharp tools such as Stanley knifes or make a cork noticeboard by gluing them together into a frame.
    
34. Reuse your yoghurt pots by making a hole in the bottom and use for planting seeds or use them for paint pots for children’s playtime. You could donate these to your local school or playgroup.
    
35. Buy your compost derived from green waste not peat based.
    
36. Use old worn out clothes as rags for cleaning, painting, or car rags.
    
37. When you are finished with your old telephone directory, consider adding it gradually to a compost bin (a couple of pages at a time), or to raise a computer monitor before the final option of recycling it in your kerbside collection.
    
38. Reuse your old tyres by either taking them to a local petrol station who will recycle them or turn them into tyre swing by attaching a strong rope to a sturdy tree.
    
39. Collect your rain water, by installing a water butt or devices within your pipes to capture rain water – it’s much better for plants than chlorinated tap water.
    
40. Reuse wood by turning it into a usable item such as a bird table, shoe rack or a spice rack.
    
41. Buy a Christmas tree with a root ball and plant it in a container outside so you can bring it in each year to use again and again.
    
    

    Lifestyle
    

42. Cycle to work, it’s much healthier for you and the environment.
    
43. Start up a walking bus with parents helping to take local children to school instead of driving.
    
44. Car share to work, school runs and college.
    
    

    College/school
    

45. If you must print off emails and documents, print on both sides. This feature is usually accessed through your print properties.
    
46. Try reducing the number of staples used, if every one of the UK’s 10 million office workers used one fewer staples daily, it would save 328 kilos of steel a day – 120 tonnes a year! Use paper clips instead which are reusable or buy a stapleless stapler.
    
47. When replacing office furniture, contact a local furniture reuse organisation. There are over 6 organisations across Bedfordshire (covering various areas) who will pick up furniture of a certain quality to resell on. Age Concern (01908 263838), Ammaus (01234 720826), Preen Furniture Bank (01767 600332), Furniture Link (01234 353578), Charity Furniture Store (01234 352887) and Noah (01582 484001).
    
48. Plastic cups from vending machines can be recycled into plastic rulers and pencils. If you work in an office with a vending machine, contact either Remarkable (new window) or Save a Cup (new window) to discuss recycling them.
    
49. Put your used and confidential paper through a shredding machine and use it for bedding for small animals or lay newspapers on the bottom of your animal hutches.
    
50. Small cardboard boxes are fun for small animals to play with (always remove staples and any tape).