What To Do With Your Rubbish

I’m trying very hard to reduce how much I send to landfill. I recycle as much as possible and I buy as little additional packaging and plastic as possible, but there are some things it’s very hard to avoid buying. My local council won’t accept a lot of items in the recycle bin. So what can you do with your rubbish instead of throwing it away?

First off, have a read of this to learn 25 simple ways you can reduce your plastic waste. The less you have to throw away the better!

As the recent series on plastic made by the BBC made very clear, even the recycling we’re doing is not necessarily being recycled. Instead it gets shipped off to other countries like Malaysia. Recycling is good, but reusing is better. A good thing to remember whenever you’re shopping is “Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot”. If you can’t say no to something or reduce the amount you buy then see if you can reuse or repurpose it, if not can it be recycled or will it rot? (e.g. food waste). If none of those things apply then try to avoid buying it. When you can’t avoid all this unnecessary packaging we’re forced to buy there are a few things you can do with your rubbish instead of just chucking it in the bin.

What To Do With Your Rubbish

Instead of Throwing it Away (or in some cases instead of recycling)

Batteries

Try to use rechargeable batteries as much as possible just to reduce your overall waste. However all batteries come to the end of their life at some point. They’re full of harmful heavy metals which can contaminate the soil and our water supply if they’re put in with the rest of your rubbish. Hopefully you know this already but you should never put batteries in with your household waste!

• Most major supermarkets have a battery recycling point, just take your dead batteries with you when you next go shopping and dispose of them responsibly. More info here.

Bread Bags*

Wherever possible you should try to buy your bread from a local baker. Not only will the bread be a lot nicer but they rarely sell their loaves in single use plastic. Unfortunately many good local bakeries have closed and for many us our only option is to buy bread from a supermarket. My local Sainsbury’s doesn’t sell any bread without a plastic covering, however I’m sometimes able to time my visit when they’re taking fresh loaves out of the oven. Although it confuses the staff immensely I ask them for a fresh loaf to put in my own cloth bag that I’ve brought with me. They then hand me the price sticker.

If you’re buying prepackaged loaves then many times the bread bags will actually be recyclable. (Not if you buy plastic wrapped loaves from the in-house bakery though). Hovis bread bags are recyclable for example. Unfortunately most local councils won’t accept bread bags in your recycling but you can still get them recycled if they’re made from LDPE plastic.

• There’s a free recycling scheme set up by Hovis and Terracycle, which is a network of public drop-off locations – find out where your nearest bread bag drop off location is here, or set one up near you! Find out more here.

Cardboard Boxes

Cardboard boxes are accepted with recycling everywhere, but why throw them away when cardboard boxes are so useful? Most cardboard boxes can be reused so just flatten them and store them away until you need to use them.

• Why not take a box with you to the supermarket to carry your shopping home in the car?
• Or you could make an excellent fort for your kids or your cats!
• If you can’t use the boxes, or you have no space for them, check out your local pages on facebook. Someone is always looking for boxes for moving house, or just let people know you have some that can be picked up for free.

Contact Lenses*

Contact Lenses seem so wasteful to me and fortunately glasses aren’t as unpopular as they once were. I’m not going to judge you for wearing contact lenses, but it would better to buy reusable ones rather than disposables. Not only is it money down the drain but that’s a lot of small plastics to dispose of. Fortunately you can now recycle soft lenses.

• Drop off soft lenses and blister packs to one of these drop-off points.

Crisp packets*

Just like Hovis, Walkers crisps have teamed up with Terracycle to provide free drop off locations for your crisp packets. Don’t worry, they accept all crisp packets, not just Walkers. Your local council won’t accept crisp packets in the recycling so instead of them being sent to landfill this is a great alternative.

• Check out all the existing crisp packet drop off locations here.

The best thing about this free crisp packet recycling scheme is that you can raise money for charity by participating. If you can’t find a location near you, why not set one up?

Food

In an ideal world there wouldn’t be any food waste, but right now that’s pretty hard to achieve. (Damn you supermarkets for making me buy more food than I need by packaging everything up instead of selling fruit and vegetables loose).

• Most of your raw food can be composted, with just a few things you shouldn’t put in your compost bin.
• Try to avoid cooked food waste by being sensible with your portions, or freezing any excess to eat at later date.

Newspapers

Some people still buy actual newspapers! Yes they can be recycled but why recycle them when newspaper can be so useful? Most newspapers these days use vegetable or soy inks, which are non-toxic, meaning they should be safe to be used as bedding for small animals. (Contact the newspaper you read to find out for sure whether the dye they use is safe before doing this).

• You can use newspaper instead of wrapping paper, which can look quite classy depending on what news story is visible!
• It’s the perfect packaging material instead of using those awful styrofoam packing peanuts.

If you find you’ve got too many newspapers in the house that you can’t possibly use them all for pet bedding, packaging or wrapping presents then contact your local animal shelter.

• Many animal shelters will happily take your newspapers off your hands to use as pet bedding, or even to line litter trays.

Pens (and highlighters, markers and correction fluid)*

“All writing instruments (except for wooden pencils and chalk) are accepted : Any brand of pen, felt tip, highlighter, marker, correction fluid pot, correction tape, mechanical pencil and eraser pen regardless of their composition.” – Find out more here.

• Take your writing instruments to a drop off location

Pet Food Pouches*

Personally I try to avoid pet food pouches as I just feel better buying tins which I know can be put in my recycling bin. I also hate seeing all that plastic. However you can actually recycle pet food pouches. Of course, your local council won’t accept them but Terracycle (yes them again) have this time teamed up with Whiskas and James Wellbeloved.

• Here are the current free drop off locations for your pet food pouches.

You don’t even have to clean them before you drop them off!

Pet Hair

Pet hair gets everywhere! One of the best ways to reduce the amount of pet hair you find attached to your clothes or furniture is to regularly give your pet a good brushing. It’s not only good for them but it helps you to bond with your pet as well. Brushing your pet means it’s nice and easy to collect the excess fur. But what can you do with pet hair instead of throwing it away?

• If you’re creative (or a little weird), you can make a replica of your pet out of the fur!
• Use it as stuffing for your pets pillow.
• Birds like to use fur to line their nests, hang small balls of fur on branches so it’s easily accessible.
• Use it as a pet toy. Just roll the fur into a ball for a very cheap pet toy.
• Donate it – pet hair can be used in a variety of ways. Look out for a hair drive near you (this is very rare in the UK, but other countries use pet hair to develop vaccines or even to mop oil spills).

Plastic

Most local councils will accept plastic bottles in the recycling bin but they rarely accept soft or flexible plastics.

• One of the best things you can do with your plastic bottles and soft plastic waste is make eco-bricks.

Instead of crushing your plastic bottle and putting them in the recycling bin and throwing away all that soft plastic you can stuff the soft plastics into the bottle to make an eco-friendly brick. Wash the plastics and then push it all into the bottle using a stick. Instead of going to landfill your brick can now be used as a cheap building material. Find out more information here.

Snack packets*

This makes me feel a little bit less guilty about buying snacks because there are so few you can buy without plastic packaging. The following items can all be recycled at a Terracycle collection point:

1. Confectionary packaging (all plastic pouches, wrapping from individual and blocks of chocolate bars)
2. Pringles Tubes!
3. Nuts, popcorn and more (crisp, popcorn, nut and pretzel packets)

Tetra Paks

If I drank milk I’d be finding a local dairy that delivers milk in glass bottles, but I don’t and instead I get through an awful lot of soy milk. Plant milks are increasingly popular but you’ll find it virtually impossible to find them for sale in anything other than a Tetra Pak. Tetra Paks are everywhere these days and because they’re made from a mix of cardboard and plastic most local councils won’t accept them in the recycling bin.

• Some local councils do accept Tetra Paks at the local tip / recycling point even if they don’t collect them. Contact your local authority to see if they take Tetra Paks.

Toothbrushes / toothpaste and more*

Again I’d advise you to avoid buying bathroom items that come in plastic packaging, but if you do have the listed oral care products you can take them to a free drop-off location. Colgate and, you guessed it, Terracycle have teamed up to collect:

1. Any brand of toothpaste tubes and caps
2. Any brand of toothpaste outer packaging
3. All toothbrushes
4. All electric and battery toothbrush heads
5. Any brand of toothpaste carton

*What happens to all these things that Terracycle collects? “TerraCycle reuses, upcycles and recycles waste instead of incinerating or landfilling it. This moves waste from a linear system to a circular one, allowing it to keep cycling in our economy.” – https://www.terracycle.com/en-GB/about-terracycle

So if you were wondering what to do with your rubbish I hope I’ve given you a few ideas for some alternative uses as well as let you know that some items you probably thought couldn’t be recycled actually can! Please try to reduce how much you buy though because it’s better if we all reduce how much waste we produce in the first place.

Check out some radical ways to tackle waste.

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