Hints and Tips for Reducing Your Waste

Hints and Tips for Reducing your waste

Reducing what you waste is a great way to reduce your impact on the environment.

From thinking differently about what you buy, to using re-usable items and composting at home - there are lots of ways to make a real difference.

Reduce your waste in 7 steps.

·  Stop unwanted mail

·  Think before you shop

·  Your rubbish is another person’s treasure

·  Avoid wasting food

·  Use less packaging

·  Love your clothes

·  Other useful tips

Stop unwanted mail

Many households will receive a considerable amount of unwanted or junk mail during the course of the year. A lot of direct mail is poorly targeted and irrelevant and quite often is thrown straight in the bin.

There are a number of ways to reduce the amount of direct mail you receive.

Write to sender

·  Where mail is addressed to "The Occupier" or is personally addressed, you can write to or email the sender to indicate that you no longer wish to receive mailings from them.

Register with the Mailing Preference Service

·  Many households still receive mail that is personally addressed to someone that lived there previously.

·  To reduce the influx of mail that has someone else's name and address on it, you can either write to the sender and indicate that the person named no longer lives at your address or you can register the previous occupier with the Mailing Preference Service(MPS).

·  While it can take up to four months for the MPS to have full effect, registering can reduce the amount of personally addressed direct mailings by up to 95%. Registering with the MPS is free of charge.

Opt out of unaddressed mail

·  Unaddressed mail does not contain your name or address details and can include marketing materials such as flyers, circulars, supermarket leaflets and free newspapers. Some people call it junk mail.

·  There are two steps that can be taken to reduce this type of mail and we would advise you to do both:

o  Register with the Your Choice preference scheme: the 'Your Choice' preference scheme is run by the Direct Marketing Association and allows you to ask distribution companies that are members of the Association to stop delivering unaddressed mail to your home.

o  Opt out of the Royal Mail's Door-to-Door service: Door to Door is the Royal Mail's service that delivers unaddressed mail. Registering to opt out of this service will stop these items being delivered to your door within six weeks.

Tick the box

·  To avoid generating unwanted mail, when filling in any form (like applying for credit cards or entering competitions), make sure that you tick the box that says you don't want your name to be added to any mailing lists. This is normally at the bottom of the form or on the reverse.

Opt out of the edited version of the Electoral Register

·  The Electoral Register lists the name and address of everyone who has registered to vote. There are two versions:

o  the full register is used for elections, preventing and detecting crime, and checking applications for credit

o  the edited register can be bought by any person, company or organisation and could be used for different purposes, including marketing.

·  Your details appear on the full version of the register, but you can choose to exclude your details from the edited version when registering.

·  The person who fills in and signs the voter registration form must ask each person named on the form if they want their details to be included on the edited register. If you do not want your details to appear on the edited register, tick the box on the voter registration form to be excluded.

·  To find out more visit theElectoral Commission website.

Use online services

·  Many companies you deal with, including utility companies and banks, offer online services. As well as the convenience of viewing your account and paying bills online, you may also be able to stop receiving paper bills and statements.

·  You may also receive a discount too.

Think before you shop

Before you shop, think about how you could reduce your waste.

For example, you could buy things with less packaging, or second-hand items.

Don't buy – hire

·  Hire tools or borrow from friends or family for odd jobs, rather than buying your own. Tools for Self Reliance will send your old tools to Africa.

·  You can also check websites like Freecycle and Freegle to see if anyone is giving away the very tool you are looking for!

Rechargeable batteries

·  Use rechargeable batteries and a battery charger. This saves energy because the energy needed to manufacture a battery is on average 50 times greater than the energy it gives out. While the rechargeable cells have a higher initial cost, rechargeable batteries can be recharged many times.

·  Using rechargeable battery system can reduce toxic materials sent to landfills compared to using disposable batteries. For example, some rechargeable batteries claim a service life of 100-1000 times more than a regular battery. However, rechargeable batteries are not suitable for smoke alarms as they tend to run out suddenly, preventing the alarm from warning when battery power is low.

Reuse carrier bags

·  To avoid taking home more carrier bags, choose reusable shopping bags: keep them in the car boot or pop a folded cotton bag in your handbag or pocket so you always have one to hand.

Your rubbish is another person’s treasure!

Unwanted household furniture

·  Bolton Council offers a chargeable collection service for unwanted household items. For further information visit http://www.bolton.gov.uk/website/pages/Bulkyitemcollections.aspx. Or advertise your old furniture in your local paper or on websites such as Freecycle or Freegle.

Unwanted white goods such as fridges, freezers and ovens.

·  Contact Bolton Community transport Furniture Services on 01204 364777

Unwanted Electrical Items

·  Take your unwanted electrical items to one of the recycling centres. To find your nearest recycling centre visit http://www.bolton.gov.uk/website/pages/Tipsandrecyclingsites.aspx

Good quality clothing, books and unwanted gifts

·  Donate to charity shops. Alternatively use the clothing banks at your local recycling centre. To find your nearest bring centre visit http://www.bolton.gov.uk/website/pages/Tipsandrecyclingsites.aspx

Avoid wasting food

Much of the food we throw away just doesn't get used in time. Small changes we can make, such as using left-over food to make new dishes, can help which means more can be eaten rather than ending up in the bin, saving us time and money!

Every year in the UK we throw away £12.5 billion worth of good food, costing the average family almost £60 a month.

Here are some top tips to help keep your food fresh:

·  Just out of habit, many of us take fruit and veg out its pack as soon as we get it home. Keeping it in its original packaging can keep it fresher for longer. For example, shrink wrapped cucumber will last around five times longer than non-shrink wrapped ones.

·  It's best not to put bread into the fridge as it goes stale much quicker. Bread keeps better in a cool dark place such as the bread bin or a store cupboard. Bread also freezes well for use another time.

·  Look out for re-closable packs to keep your opened food in peak condition for longer. If your pack doesn't have a re-closable feature, use a bag clip or put the opened pack in an air tight container.

To find out useful tips on the storage of food, tantalising recipes and advice on portioning and meal planning, visit Love Food Hate Waste.

Using less packaging

Too much packaging? Speak up!

·  Many retailers believe it is hugely important to be responsive to their customers. So why not take this at face value and make your voice heard? If you believe a product has too much packaging, contact the retailer, brand or supplier either by revisiting the place that you bought the product, or by writing to them. Also, take a look at the product packaging, it may have a contact number or address for you to use. You can use this letter template to help compose your letter.

·  If you feel you are not making progress with your complaint or are unsatisfied with the response you receive, you can report the case to your local Trading Standards Office. To find your local office visit the Trading Standards website.

Choose products with less packaging

·  The products you choose to buy can have a big influence on the amount of waste produced. So look out for products with reduced packaging and avoid products which are over-packaged - this can make a really big difference in the long run. For example, buy loose fruit and veg - this can save a lot of otherwise unnecessary packaging.

·  Consider buying concentrates. Concentrated products contain less water so can reduce packaging by over 50%. Fabric conditioner, squash, liquid detergent and handwash are all examples of concentrated or refillable products.

Love Your Clothes

We can all save money and help the environment by making simple changes to the way we buy, use and get rid of our clothing.

Buying clothes

·  We spend £1,800 on average each year on clothes. There are lots of ways we can make the most of this money by checking our wardrobes and making a list before we go shopping, choosing clothing designed to last longer and buying second hand.

Getting more out of our existing clothes

·  The reason some of our clothes remain unworn is because they no longer fit, need repairing, or they don't suit our style or taste anymore. To overcome this you can:

o  look for shops nearby which offer repair and alteration services

o  wear clothes in new combinations and use accessories to give clothing a new lease of life

o  use energy efficient laundry methods.

Keeping clothes out of the bin

More than 30% of our clothing goes to landfill, with nearly half of us putting some clothing in the bin. All of our clothing can either be re-used or recycled.

·  Pass it on! - If clothing is in good condition but is no longer of use to you, consider passing it on to someone else.

·  Unwanted clothing has a value. Why not sell them online, at a car boot sale or via Cash for Clothes

·  Donate clothing to charity shops.

Other useful tips

Whenfully recycling all your glass jars/bottles, food/drink cans, aerosols/clean tin foil, newspapers/magazines, plastic bottles,cardboardand textiles you can reduce the volume of yourhousehold waste by over 70%.

·  Occasionally washyour bin with disinfectant to keep it clean and fresh.

·  Flatten any bulky items where possible.

·  Piercesacks to remove unwanted air, and compress the bag to reduce its size.

·  Recycle your food waste in the green bin or food waste container.

·  Take small electrical goods to one of the recycling facilities.

http://www.bolton.gov.uk/website/pages/Tipsandrecyclingsites.aspx

·  Buy loose fruit,veg, and meats to reduce the number of plastic trays

·  Plan your meals for the week, to avoid buying excess food and creating additional waste

·  If you have lots of plastic tubs, cut them into smaller pieces

·  Place any rubbish in your bin and try to get waste into the corners to use as much of the available space. Don’t just stack on top of other bags

·  Take any old clothing to charity shops or cut up and use as dusters etc.