Supporting Recycle Week 16-22 October
Recycle Week is from the 16-22 October, an annual celebration to raise awareness of recycling. This year’s theme – The Big Recycling Hunt – focuses on ‘missed capture’, the items that can be recycled but are often thrown into the rubbish.
Take a look and see if and how these common household items can be recycled:
Not sure if you can recycle something? Check out your relevant local authority for a full list of what you can recycle and where in your area
The Ampthill Climate Change Group also have a Recycling Directory.
What are thin plastics and can they be recycled?
Thin or soft plastics are those that often cannot be recycled at home. These are the plastics that if you scrunch them, they will often spring back. Whilst these cannot be put in household recycling bins as the lightweight plastics clog up processing machinery at recycling centres, they can often be recycled in supermarkets.
The following supermarkets in and around Greensand Country offer recycling facilities for soft plastics:
Sainsbury’s: Biggleswade, Hitchin, Bramingham Park
Tesco: Leighton Buzzard, Dunstable, Tring, Flitwick, Bedford
Co-op: Barton le Clay, Biggleswade, Saxon Centre, Birsdfoot Lane, Biscot Road, Caddington, Dunstable, Katherine Drive, Westfield Road, Goldington, Harrold, Kempston, Lewsey Farm, Hancock Drive Luton, Stopsley, Stotfold, Whipperley, Wigmore Lane, Queens Drive Bedford, Shefford. Waitrose: Ampthill, Leighton Buzzard, Bedford, Hitchin
ALDI: Flitwick
What else can you do to reduce your waste?
Recycling is just one way to reduce our household waste. Why not consider reducing the amount of recyclable material you use by opting for alternative products that minimise packaging, or reusing materials such as pots and wrapping.
Reducing the food waste that has to be processed industrially by composting your own waste at home is a great way to start. This reduces the processing required and also improves the biodiversity of your garden.
Home composting is aerobic, a process that uses oxygen. When compared to anaerobic decomposition often used in large scale processing of organic waste, aerobic decomposition does not produce methane gas, only trace elements of carbon dioxide. This means that much less greenhouse gases are emitted through composting at home than industrial facilities.
You can compost in a heap or a bin, and both are cheap and easy methods to get started. For a more detailed guide on how you can start composting, and what you can and can’t compost, check out The Wildlife Trust’s guidance here: https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/actions/how-compost-your-waste
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