let’s recycle better, together 

Recycling can be confusing, and I thought some quick tips would help you better navigate this at home and in the office. Whilst I believe there needs to be a lot the government and councils should do to streamline this, there are some easy tips we can incorporate into our lives in the meantime, to ensure we are recycling as effectively as we can.

Please take a look at these tips and also check out recyclenow – it is a site where you can put your postcode in and it will give you a list of what is recyclable in your area curb side and also where you can recycle other items, such as electronics and textiles (clothing etc).

Tip 1: Know your numbers

Did you know that on the bottom of all plastic, there is a number in a triangle? While this may seem insignificant, this is actually the most important thing to know. There may also be letters accompanying it. Check out my download here for a full list of what these all mean.

For successful recycling in England, the most important numbers are 1 (PET) and 2 (HDPE or PE HD). These are the most consistently recycled across the country and are found on the bottoms of clear hard plastic trays, drinks bottles, cleaning products, hand wash, shampoos.

If you find a number 5 (PP) then unless it is a bottle shape, please check on recyclenow as to whether your council will accept it.

If you find the numbers 3, 4, 6 and 7, please throw these into the general waste. There are ways to recycle some of these items but not through curb side. So whilst it may pain you, please pop these in the general waste bin to avoid sending a bigger load of accepted items to landfill.

Check out this video to help understand the numbers more here.

There are some other recycling symbols on packaging and you can find out more on recyclenow.com here but these are the key ones you will need to start recycling from today.

Tip 2: Squash it and re-lid it!

Not only does this save space in your recycling bin, but it means valuable hard plastic in the lids is more likely to be recovered in the recycling process.

If you throw the lids in separately, they are more likely to drop through the gaps in the recycling process. Please remember to make sure all liquid is drained out before you squash it though. This is a common problem and super easy to fix.

So drain it, squash it, lid it and recycle it!

Tip 3: Rinse it out

Food contamination is one of the top problems in recycling causing loads to be sent to incineration or landfill, so please try to get into the habit of giving the item a rinse. Whether it is a tin can, bottle of plonk, fizzy drink, milk bottle, vegetable tray – anything that is accepted by your local authority that has had food in it needs to be pretty clean. In the UK, we don’t need to remove labels unless specified on the packaging, but we do need to rinse everything out and leave it out to dry before popping it in the bin.

Please note, if it is wet, it can contaminate other items such as cardboard or paper.

Tip 4: Don’t bag it!

Another top item on the biggest contaminates to recycling is black bags, and any colour bag really.

Recycling should be loose in the bin. This is because we cannot recycle plastic bags, particularly black bags, curbside due to the quality and resale value of the plastic.

Also the recycling crews going round and collecting the rubbish can’t see into the bin bags and see what is being thrown away. You may be the best recycler on the block but if you use a bag to collect it all, unfortunately your efforts are wasted.

So please remember to bin black bags and leave the recycling to be free!

Tip 5: No Pizza boxes please

Damp, grease or food contaminated cardboard is a no no. When recycling card, it needs to be clean and dry. This is because it is harder to find a market for wet / greasy paper as it reduces the quality of the material. If you have a home compost or know someone that does, the contaminated cardboard is great to add to that. But please keep it away from our recycling bins.

Tip 6: Don’t forget the bathroom

While 90% of kitchen recycling is done, Brits only recycle 50% of bathroom waste. Toilet rolls, cleaning products, shampoo and conditioner products along with body wash can all be recycled – just know the number on the bottle. Have a bin in the bathroom or just remember to take the empties to the sink, rinse them and leave them to dry, squash anything you can and pop them into the recycling bin. Remember, know your numbers and if in doubt, throw it out.

Tip 7: Less is best

Buy easy to recycle options and opt for less packaging. For a start, there is less to worry about what item goes in what bin! The average person in the UK throws out 400kg of waste per year – that is about the weight of 4 giant panda bears!

Prevention of waste is the best cure to reduce it, and while there are petitions and bigger companies slowly making needed changes - for example, Tesco is working with suppliers to remove shrink wrapped multipacks from their shelves and having the deals ring up at checkout - we can still have an immediate impact on overall recycling and landfill figures by simply opting to refill or reuse whereever possible.

There are also more and more plastic free or packaging free items popping up within supermarkets and special shops. Your money is your power – you worked hard to get it so spend it where you want to support. Buy local where you can as well and support your community and all the wonderful things it has to offer.

Tip 8: Bank those bottles

If mixed recycling is not available, save the glass bottles. If it isn’t available to recycle certain items such as glass bottles curb side try to remember to separate them and pop them in your local glass recycling bank. Why not do this for your neighbours and take turns? It takes less energy to reuse the glass than it does to make new glass bottles and glass is 100% recyclable – in fact, every tonne of glass recycled saves 246 kg of CO2 emissions.

Just remember to put the lids back on them – there is a market for the lids so they are good to pop back on. Just remember to rinse and let them dry out before plonking in the recycling bin or your glass box or bag for the local recycling bank.

Top tip: Also you can save those natural corks and either use them for art projects, or send them to Recorked UK or ReCork in the USA.

TIP 9: If in doubt, bin it

By 2020 there is an EU target that we should be recycling 50% of our waste. At the moment the UK is falling short by about 5%. In 2018, 500,00 tonnes of recycled waste was sent to landfill or to be incinerated because it contained items that shouldn’t have been there. A blue whale weighs about 140 tonnes – so we are sending about the weight of 3,571 blue whales to landfill or incineration.

Contaminates include:

• Black bags

• Cling film and stretchy plastics

• Hard non recyclable plastics - remember to know your numbers

• Nappies and used period products

• Coffee cups

• Clothing / textiles

• DIY materials

• Electronics

• Food waste and liquids still in bottles

• Pizza boxes with grease on them

• Greasy and damp paper / cardboard

• Tissues and kitchen roll

• Hopeful recycling - i.e. because it is plastic, hoping that it can be sorted and recycled by your council. Remember you may be able to recycle glass in one county, but in another you have to take it to a recycling facility so double check on recyclenow about what is recycled in your area

TIP 10: Bilbo BagOUT not Baggins

Sorry, Lord of the Rings pun! Plastic bags / stretchy plastic are not recyclable. With the best will in the world, unfortunately we cannot recycle it curbside. There are some options at certain supermarkets (Tesco is trialling a scheme for this) where you can drop off plastic bags and bread bags for example, but items like cling film or salad bags need to go into general waste.

Tip 11: Food not so glorious food

Food waste is definitely not recyclable. Ideally if you have a home compost or a nearby allotment where you can drop your food waste off, that would be great. It has been worked out by some very clever people, that if all the food waste (growing, packaging, transporting etc) was grouped together to form a country, it would be the 3rd highest emitter of greenhouse gasses. It is estimated that we waste 68kgs of food every year per person – that is about the same weight as 68 meerkats!

So try to reduce any waste at all but if you are throwing it away, please avoid the recycling bin. Food waste is one of the biggest reasons we have to send recycling to either landfill or to be incinerated.

Tip 12: The bigger the better!

Small bits of paper, plastic or foil will drop through the cracks in the recycling process. Firstly it goes from your bin to a truck. From the truck to an MRF (pronounced merf) which is a Material Recovery Facility. It is then sorted and will be grouped together before making it's way to a specialist facility i.e. one focused on plastic or paper. There are more steps after this before the item gets back on the shelves, so you can see there are many potential cracks at the beginning of the process.

So please remember the bigger it is, the better chance it has at being recycled.