Posted by Janet Chu, Digital Marketing Executive

Problems with recycling? We’ve come up with 10 tips to help you reduce, reuse and recycle more efficiently.

1/ Too many plastic bags at home
Research shows that on average each of us use a staggering 130 plastic bags a year. If you know you’re going shopping, why not take shopping bags with you?

2/ Junk in the trunk
Car boot sales are an excellent way to give the pre-loved items a new home – for cash too!

3/ Cooked too much
Don’t throw it in the bin, use leftovers to make lunch boxes – saves packaging, saves food and saves money. For other ideas on food and waste visit the Love Food Hate Waste website.

4/ Used batteries clogging up drawers
Some retailers have recycle banks designed for disposal of batteries. Alternatively, switch to rechargeable batteries – you’ll end up paying less in the long run.

5/  Where’s the space?
Wash and squash cans and plastic bottles before putting them into the recycling bins – that way, more cans and bottles can be fitted into the recycling bins and less trips for you to the recycling point.

6/ Another life for the jam jar
Give the jam jar a good rinse and you’ve found a home for all those spare buttons, safety pins, loose change and foreign coins.  

7/ Got an old mobile?
Today’s method of strip-mining means sourcing one ounce of gold can generate 79 tonnes of toxic waste! The circuit boards inside mobile phones contain gold, silver and platinum – so if you have an old mobile phone, think of the environment and recycle it through one of the mobile phone recycling schemes – and you should get some cash for your efforts!

8/ Paper statements overload
Adding water to shredded statements and junk mails means an afternoon of fun with the kids making paper mache!  However, opting out of paper statements with your banks and other service providers will minimise on a lot of paper waste in the long term.

9/ Blown another light bulb
Why not replace your bulbs with energy saving light bulbs; they may seem expensive now, but it works out much cheaper in the long term.

10/ Refill, refill and refill
It’s much cheaper to refill water bottles than to buy a new bottle of mineral water every day; from water bottles to ink cartridges, maximise their lifecycle by refilling and reusing.