Tips on reducing waste

Cutting down on how much waste we create is vital to protect the environment and to tackle climate change. Fortunately, it's easy to do and could save you money too.

Find advice on how we can cut the rubbish we're responsible for and answers to common waste reduction problems here.

Reduce, reuse, recycle!

When it comes to dealing with our waste, there's a simple league table of what's best:

Reduce

The best tactic of all: Can we avoid buying an item, or wasting resources such as food?

Reuse

Rather than chucking something away or having it broken down for recycling, can it be reused as it is? Reuse avoids the energy and resource costs of making and transporting new items to replace it and disposing of old ones.

Recycle

Recycling means we can reclaim the resources used to make an item so that they can be used to make new items. Recycling also saves much of the energy needed to transform raw natural resources into usable materials like metals, glass, paper, and plastics.

Reduce

Waste less food

About a third of the food we buy is thrown in the bin. Over half of this could have been eaten. That represents a significant waste of money, not to mention the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production, transport, preparation and storing of food and drink. In fact, around 20% of total UK emissions relate to food.

The Love Food Hate Waste website www.wasteawarelovefood.org.uk provides hints, tips and recipe ideas as well as featuring recipes and advice from leading Scottish chefs. For ideas on planning and preparing your food shopping and meals see www.wasteawarelovefood.org.uk/planning.asp Advice on where, what and how long foods can be stored can be found at www.wasteawarelovefood.org.uk/storingFood.asp. To help prevent cooking too much food, advice on how much food constitutes a typical portion can be found at www.wasteawarelovefood.org.uk/portioning.asp.

A variety of great recipe ideas using leftovers are available at www.wasteawarelovefood.org.uk/recipeIdeas.asp. Where you’ll also find a database of seasonal recipes and recipes using leftovers by Scottish chefs, food writers and people like you.

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Unsubscribe from mailing lists

Cutting down on the amount of unwanted mail you receive can help reduce paper waste and how much you have to recycle.

The Mailing Preference Service can remove your name (and others who may have lived at your address) from mailing lists for free.

• Register with The Mailing Preference Service.
• Find other ways of reducing unwanted mail at Waste Aware Scotland.

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Avoid unnecessary packaging

When buying items, look for those that have the least amount of packaging, or none at all!

Easy ways to cut down on packaging are to buy fruit and vegetables loose rather than pre-packed and to download computer software and music rather than buying boxed.

• Read more on greener shopping.

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Reuse

Refills

When buying detergents etc., look for reusable, refillable containers. Plastic bag type refills create less waste than buying a new bottle or boxful every time you run out.

There's a huge array of refills available for everyday household items and office supplies. Make a point of asking at your local shop or supermarket.

For home and office equipment you can usually get refills for printer, fax and photocopier cartridges.

• Find out more about refills at Sort It.

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Repairs

When something breaks, it's often tempting to go out and get a whole new item. Buying new increases demand, which markets react to by producing more, using more energy and materials in the process.

If we can repair and reuse items, we can help to reduce demand and save energy and resources.

• Find repair services near you at Sort It.

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Donate or sell unwanted items

Give your unwanted goods a new life by donating them to charity shops. Find their details in Yellow Pages. Check to make sure they'll accept what you're offering before taking it along.

Items commonly accepted by charities include:

• clothes, shoes, curtains and bedding
• books, CDs and DVDs
• furniture
• kitchenware, crockery and cutlery
• computers, TVs and other electrical goods
• mobile phones
• paint, wood and building materials*
• spectacles

*Paint, wood and building materials are not commonly accepted at High Street charity shops.

Many recycling points have charity bins for recycling clothes, shoes and books.

• Find out more about charities' reuse and recycling at Waste Aware Scotland.
• Find where you can recycle unwanted goods with a Sort It website.
• Find local charities that pick up furniture at the Furniture Re-use Network Directory.

Alternatively, you could sell unwanted stuff online, through classified listings in local newspapers or simply by posting notices in local shops.

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Mobile phones

Sure, if you're on a contract, you can have a shiny new handset at no extra cost every year or so. But if the old one isn't broken, do you really need a new phone?

But if you have to get a new mobile, many charities will happily put your old one to good use. For example, the British Red Cross can turn your old mobile into life-saving funds by selling them for reuse. Obsolete or broken handsets can be broken up and the parts reused or recycled.

• Find a Red Cross Branch near you.

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Printer, fax and photocopier cartridges

Most cartridges can be re-filled and used again (look in Yellow Pages under 'Computer Consumables' for refill services).

If that's not possible, you can donate them to one of the several charities that raise funds by sending them for reuse.

• Visit Cartridges for Charity.

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Paint leftovers

Of the 350 million litres of paint sold in the UK each year, 45 million remain unused. Community RePaint runs paint-collection schemes and redistributes it to community projects, housing associations and schools.

• Find paint donation points in Scotland with the Community RePaint Directory.

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Recycle

Make recycling easy

Make space next to your kitchen bin for a recycling container so it's as simple to recycle as it is to throw away.

Next to the kitchen bin is also a handy place to put a container for compostable items.

In the bathroom, study or office, place a box for recycling paper and cardboard items next to the rubbish bin.

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Kerbside recycling collections

Kerbside recycling collections are now available in every Local Authority area in Scotland, with more types of collection being added all the time.

Kerbside recycling is now available to 75% of Scottish houses.

• Find out about local collections with the Sort it Kerbside Collections directory.

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Recycling facilities

Recycling just one glass bottle saves enough energy to power a washing machine for 10 minutes. Every tonne of glass recycled saves 135 litres of oil and 1.2 tonnes of ash, sand and limestone.

Across Scotland, there are now more than 3366 places where you can take items to be recycled.

• Find your nearest facility with a Sort It Recycling Postcode Search.

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Compost kitchen and garden waste

If you have a garden, you could compost your garden and food waste. You can use a purpose made compost bin or make your own compost heap from old wood or shipping pallets.

Feed it with vegetable and fruit peelings, teabags, eggshells, garden prunings, grass clippings and even cardboard and paper to create FREE compost that will make your garden bloom.

• Read the Sort It guide to home composting.
• Buy a reduced cost compost bin.

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Motor oil

Every year in the UK, 13,000 tonnes of car oil are improperly discarded, contaminating the country's rivers, lakes and streams and threatening aquatic life. The toxic metals contained in oil such as lead, nickel and cadmium can poison the soil and lead to infertility and poor crop yields.

Properly handled, used oil can be easily re-refined into lubricants, processed into fuel oils and used as raw materials for the refining and petrochemical industries. Many petrol stations will recover your oil for you.

• Find your nearest oil disposal point with the OilCare Oil Bank Finder.

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Waste and business

Businesses in Scotland also produce waste. Why not see what can be done to reduce waste (and costs) in your workplace as well as your home?

• Get free, expert business advice on how to reduce waste at Envirowise.
• Get advice on how to reduce, reuse and recycle your business waste in Scotland at the Waste Aware Business site.

Grow Your Own

Potatoes from your garden or allotment don’t come in plastic. Neither do apples or carrots or cauliflowers. Harvest your food as nature intended – covered in soil rather than cellophane – and help reduce the amount of packaging that goes to landfill.

You can also reduce waste by reusing things in the garden that you might otherwise throw away – a stack of tyres are a great way to grow potatoes, and old plastic milk containers make good hanging baskets (make holes in the bottom for drainage, cut the top off, fill with trailing plants or herbs, and use the handle to hang them up). You can use old CDs to scare away birds, and bits of old carpet to cover compost heaps.

For more information about gardening on an allotment or at a community garden, contact:

Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens - www.farmgarden.org.uk/scotland
Scottish Allotment and Gardens Society - www.sags.org.uk
Trellis (Scottish Therapeutic Gardens Network) - www.trellisscotland.org.uk

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