Planet Ark's Top Ten Recycling Tips
Listed below are Planet Ark's top ten recycling tips.
Why not use them to ensure that you recycle better?
- The first golden rule of recycling! Phone your local council and find out what materials are part of your recycling program.
Putting the wrong thing into your recycling bin can cause a lot of problems for recyclers.
Just 25g of oven proof glass or a quarter of a tea cup can contaminate one tonne of normal glass making it useless for recycling. As a result, this glass can end up in landfill.
Always remove the lids from PET soft drink bottles and HDPE milk cartons too - they make recycling them more difficult if you leave them on.
And don't forget to wash out packaging that's had food in it. Rinse out your old milk cartons, steel cans, glass jars and plastic food jars.
How? In old washing up water of course! Leaving them to soak overnight is an easier way of doing this - especially if they've had peanut butter in them!. - Many councils are now recycling steel cans.
When recycling steel cans, wash them out in used washing water, put the lid inside the can and then squash the top of the can before placing it in the recycling bin.
With aerosol cans, don't squash them - just take the plastic lid off first. If you're not sure whether something is made from steel or not, just put a fridge magnet next to it. If it sticks, it's made from steel. - Avoid plastic shopping bags and take a reusable bag when you go shopping.
Australians use nearly 7 billion plastic check-out bags each year - too many of these end up in waterways where they can kill marine life.
If you have to use a plastic bag, reuse it as a bin liner or take it for recycling to Coles, Woolworths or Safeway. - Look for products that come in reusable or recyclable packaging. Think about what you're going to do with the package after the contents have been removed eg. can your glass containers or steel cans become storage containers?
- 'Buy Recycled!'
Choose brands of products which contain recycled materials eg. SAFE toilet tissue or other recycled tissue products, paper stationary, paper storage bags, motor oil and packaging made from recycled material.
When you're next in the supermarket, look out for the green and yellow 'Australian Recycled Cartonboard' logo.
This indicates that the packaging is made with Australian recycled content. If your favourite breakfast cereal doesn't have this logo on it, then why not look for brands that do?
After you've been shopping, you can also go down to your local dog pound and pick up a recycled dog! - Recycle your old clothes. There are many people who would really appreciate your old frocks!
Donate clothes, books, toys, magazines and furniture to charity organisations who will distribute them to the disadvantaged or sell them to raise funds for those in need.
Look in the charity section for details about organisations who want the above materials. - Why not compost or mulch your green organic waste?
Up to 50% of our waste at home is green organic waste - putting mulch on your garden can also reduce water lost to evaporation by up to 75%. - Buy a worm farm for your food scraps instead of throwing them out.
Kids love feeding worms - a kilo of worms can eat their own weight in food every day! You can also store your food in an old ice cream container before feeding it to the worms.
And while you're at it, make sure your old car battery gets recycled. Reln's worm farms are made from plastic that comes from recycled car batteries! - Over $15 million worth of aluminium cans were thrown away as litter or landfill last year.
If you're out for the day, take home recyclable items such as cans, bottles and cartons. - Never litter them - only put them in a litter bin as a last resort – it's far better to recycle them!
- If you work in an office, do you have a paper recycling scheme?
Companies like AMCOR Recycling and Visy Recycling can assist you if you don't.
