Contains affiliate links. All opinions are honest, as always.
Are you a recycling pro, or could you use a few ideas to take you beyond the basics? We can’t recycle our way out of our environmental problems. But I still think it’s important to recycle as much as we can.
Alongside choosing options with less or no packaging (hello refill stores!) buying and consuming less, reusing and upcycling, recycling does play a part in living a more sustainable life. Our local collection point raises money for charity too.
I hope my recycling tips gives you new ideas of things you didn’t know you could recycle, along with the regular paper, bottles, cans and jars!
We are lucky as our local council does a good job with common recycling. We collect garden and food waste in a green bin, and it’s collected every week to be composted. Our easily recycled things like paper, cardboard, bottles and cans are collected at the same time as our rubbish. All we have to do is add it to a special bag each week. But that isn’t enough for me. There are so many more things we can recycle. So keep reading to find out how you can also go beyond the recycling basics.
How to Recycle Soft Plastics
I have made a recycling centre on the back of the door of our understairs pantry.
These bins collect soft plastics like plastic cereal box inners, the outside bags of multipack crisps and crisp packets, sweet bags, cheese wrappers, dry cat food bags and plastic bags with holes that we can’t use for anything else. I take them to the supermarket when I go, as you can recycle them in their big bins.
Sainsbury’s and the Co-Op are now taking lots more soft plastics, which is great news. It has to be as easy as possible to recycle, to encourage everyone to do it. So taking all of these plastic to one place, and not having to sort it is a good solution.
As you can see, they take a lot!
How to Recycle Contact Lenses and Packets
Using contact lenses produces quite a lot of waste, unfortunately, especially if you use daily disposables.
I use the two week ones, but even so, those little plastic blister packs soon mount up.
You can recycle the empty bottles of contact lens solution and the cardboard packages in your regular recycling.
I store my contact lens blister packs in a pouch until I can take them to be recycled when I go to Boots opticians. They take used contact lenses, blister packs and the foil covers.
How to Recycle Beauty Product Packaging
Beauty products generally come in plastic packaging. I try to use ones packaged more responsibly in cardboard, glass or aluminium whenever I can. Many shampoo and shower gel bottles can go in your usual recycling if you rinse them. If you have a refill shop near you though, it’s even better to refill them! But things like compacts, pumps and mascara tubes are more difficult.
It is possible to recycle more difficult beauty product packaging though.
I’ve taken mine to John Lewis in the past. They give you a ยฃ5 off voucher to use in their beauty department through their Beauty Cycle scheme. You have to have a My John Lewis card, take in five or more empty, clean beauty containers, and have to save ยฃ5 you have to spend ยฃ50 or more in store on their B Corp certified beauty brands. So although it’s a discount, you have to spend a lot to get it!
I prefer recycling my beauty products at Boots as you get Advantage Points. However, just to warn you, it’s a complicated system! You have to take a photo and add details of each product on an app, wait for it to be approved, and then scan a code when you get to the store, which gives you ยฃ5 worth of Advantage Points when you spend over ยฃ10.
Here is a screen grab from my app. I’ve uploaded the photos and they are approved. So next time I want to buy something over ยฃ10 from Boots, I’ll take them with me.
How to Recycle Medicine Blister Packs
I’m told Superdrug have a medicine blister pack recycling scheme, but I haven’t managed to find a bin to put them in our local store.
I’ve had better luck at my local big Boots, which has finally got a medicine and vitamin blister pack recycling point. It runs in the same way as their beauty packaging recycling, except this time you get 100 points (worth ยฃ1) when you recycle 5 bluster packs, and you have to spend ยฃ5.
If you have loads you need to recycle, you can just dump them in!
How to Recycle Batteries
We mainly use rechargeable batteries now, but I don’t think you can get rechargeable button cell batteries. Our local council collect batteries for recycling, if we put them in an approved bag. But I can never find the right bag. So I pop them in an old carrier bag in a basket by the front door. When I go to a supermarket I take them with me to recycle there. Please be very careful where you keep batteries, as they can be deadly if accidentally swallowed.
What to do With Glass Jars
We can recycle glass jars, but I prefer to reuse them. I wash them and soak off the labels and reuse for storage. And any that I can’t reuse, I take to our local refill shop, so other people can reuse them.
How to Recycle Tin Foil
Did you know that adding scraps of aluminium tin foil isn’t that effective? It’s better to save it, and make a ball the size of a tennis ball, so the machines can detect it. I store our milk bottle tops and foil from cream cheese in a big pasta sauce jar until I have enough to make a ball.
How to Give Glasses a Second Lease of Life
I believe you can get glasses recycled at some opticians but I think it’s better to give them a second chance to help people see, so I donate my old glasses to Lions International. This is what happens:
“All the specs you send us are sorted by a team of volunteers in our recycling centres. They are then graded and shipped to many countries around the world where they are needed. Spectacles that cannot be reused are recycled to enable us to give financial support to eye related projects in the UK and overseas.”
You can find out more on the Lions International site, and I noticed they take old bras too!
How to Encourage Your Family To Recycle More
I am (as you may have guessed!) very keen on recycling, but I do have to remind my family to recycle too. To help, we have two bins in our home office, one for rubbish and one for recycling. We have two containers in our bathroom, one for cardboard and one for plastic and metal, plus a big reused pasta sauce jar for contact lens cases. I also have a cardboard envelope with blades from my razor to send back to Friction Free Shaving for recycling.
Yes, it does take a little more effort to go beyond the recycling basics, but I think it’s worth it. And once you have a system to store recycling, and get into the habit, you’ll never throw it in the bin again!
If you can buy once and reuse or refill, that is much better for the environment, and much easier!
Pin me!
