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Environmental Services

Reduce and Reuse

Reduce, reuse and recycle make up the three Rs. The three Rs are the best way to deal with or manage our waste. Everyone is familiar with recycling but it may come as a surprise to be told that to reduce or reuse your waste is much better than recycling it!

Of course, recycling is still a very important part of how we deal with our waste and is of great benefit to our environment. That’s because recycling means that something that has been used once can be reprocessed into something new. Like an old aluminium drinks can turned into a new aluminium can, or old glass bottles into new glass bottles. By recycling our waste we don’t have to use up as much of the earth’s valuable raw materials, such as oil or sand, which are needed to make new bottles and cans.

But if we all made an effort to reduce the amount of waste we create or to reuse things more often, not only would we be using less of the earth’s raw materials but we would also have less waste to worry about in the first place! For this reason to reduce or reuse things is better than recycling.

How can you reduce and reuse your waste?

We all go shopping and this is an ideal time to take action to reduce our waste. As a shopper you make choices every day. How many people complain that when they return from shopping they spend a lot of time making trips to the rubbish bin to dispose of all that packaging?

Why not decide to only buy goods with less packaging? On average UK supermarket shoppers spend £470 a year (one sixth of their food budget) on packaging. Try buying apples and oranges loose rather than in polystyrene trays covered in cling film. Buy in bulk to reduce the amount of packaging you have to throw away once you get home. Wherever possible, buy goods in refillable containers.

And while you are shopping why not bring along some reuseable shopping bags to reduce the number of plastic bags in circulation. Most large retailers have reuseable shopping bags available in store. In Northern Ireland we use almost 230 million plastic bags a year!! Or why not just say “no thanks” to plastic carrier bags if you don’t really need them?

Fed up of all that junk mail? About 4% of the waste we throw away every year is junk mail. Did you know you can sign up to the mailing preference service www.mpsonline.org.uk and have your name taken off 95% of direct mailing lists. This should greatly reduce the amount of unsolicited mail you receive through the post.

There are very many ways you can reuse things too. Glass jars can be used again for storage. Old clothes can be sent to the local charity shops or to textile banks located at most of the Council’s recycling points. This year 197 tonnes of textiles were donated in the banks around the area! You can buy reuseable batteries and recharge them rather than buying new ones. Try using old biscuit tins as lunch boxes. The list is endless and only restricted by your imagination!

So why not try to make less waste in your daily life. If you refuse packaging and plastic bags wherever possible, avoid disposable goods, buy in bulk, buy refillable containers and reuse what you can you will go a long way to reducing the amount of waste you create.

Further information on Reduce, Reuse and Recycling can be found on the website
www.wakeuptowaste.org.uk