Recycling Your Litter

Recycling on your Big Tidy Up

1.      Visit www.recyclenow.com and use their bank locator to find out what you can recycle in your local area and where. Then make sure everyone else taking part in your tidy up knows too!

2.      If you are expecting a lot of litter, contact your local council to ask what services they can provide for  collection.

3.      Separate your litter as you collect it. Use different coloured bags for recyclable litter and non-recyclable litter.

4.      The easiest way to recycle after your Big Tidy Up is to take it to your local recycling banks. If there’s not very much, you could include it in your household recycling collection.


Litter: A wasted resource!

At least sixty per cent of what we throw away is recyclable! Recycling saves energy, diverts waste from landfill, and conserves resources: each year in Britain, we throw away and bury aluminium cans worth a total of £24 million – about 90 drinks cans per person. What’s more, recycling just one aluminium can saves enough energy to power a TV for three hours!

The environmental impact of litter
A moment in the hand… A lifetime on the land

Most litter – before it is litter – isn’t with us for long. Food packaging, drinks containers, newspapers, plastic bags; the length of time that we use these things can be counted in minutes. But their impact of the environment can last for years.

·         Fruit waste such as orange peel and apple cores take 2 years to rot down.

·         Paper takes up to 10 years to rot down.

·         Nappies may last for over 400 years.

·         Plastic, glass bottles and jars will never rot down.


Litter pollutes:

Lots of our litter ends up in streams, rivers and oceans. Here it gathers more litter, picks up oil and grease and acts as a breeding ground for mosquitoes and bacteria.


…And harms wildlife:

Animals, birds and marine life all suffer from the harmful effects of litter. (And so do we!)

Plastic bags are one of the most dangerous forms of litter. Many sea creatures die because they eat them, mistaking them for food. The plastic then remains in their stomachs and they slowly starve, unable to eat anything else. Others become trapped, or suffocate.

 

Top Tips

Here are some top tips to help you recycle once you have done your Big Tidy Up! 

1. Separate your litter as you collect it – it’s much easier and less messy to separate recyclable and non-recyclable litter in to different sacks as you collect it.

2. Find out how to recycle in your area – different councils have different systems. Visit the bank locator at www.recyclenow.com   to find out what is collected in your area. Although there are collections from houses, it will probably be easier to put the recyclable litter in recycling banks. Some councils use plastic bags for recycling – if that’s the case, just put the correct recyclables straight in there.

3. Although each council collects different materials, here are a few commonly recycled materials:

  • Newspapers and magazines
    Any clean and dry newspapers, magazines or junk mail you find can be recycled. Remember to remove any plastic covers though!
  • Plastic bottles
    All shapes and sizes are acceptable, remember to remove the lids (they go in the general waste bin) and squash to save space
  • Cans
    You can recycle all steel and aluminium food and drinks cans – recycling your aluminium can uses 95% less energy than making one from virgin materials!
  • Glass
    Although glass bottles and jars are recyclable, we strongly advise against picking up broken glass – contact your local council who will come and clean it up safely. Glass is usually separated into different colours to be recycled; try keeping your greens, browns and clears separate

4. And here is some non-recyclable litter:

  • Crisp packets and sweet wrappers
    You will find lots of these, but they are made of plastic not foil so unfortunately they can’t be recycled
  • Soggy paper and cardboard
    When it’s very wet or dirty, paper and cardboard cannot be recycled. If not too dirty it can be composted.
  • Other plastics apart from bottles
    There are many different types of plastic, and, apart from bottles, most cannot yet be recycled. Make sure you know which plastics you can recycle in your local area

Back