Recycling Articles : Waste management tips: How can we reduce the amount of rubbish?

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The amount of rubbish that we in the UK throw away every single year is enormous and very few of us ever give any thought to this, what happens to it once it leaves our homes? And what we can do to reduce the amount of rubbish that we are putting out into the environment?

Your rubbish has to go somewhere that much is obvious and there clearly is no magic hole that we can just throw all the rubbish into and make it disappear instantly. It has to go somewhere and even if it can be broken down, then sometimes it takes many years for this to happen, so common sense should tell us that unless we all give this some thought and cut down on the amount of rubbish that is thrown away every year, pretty soon we are going to run out of places to put it.

So what steps can the householder take to ensure that we reduce the amount of rubbish and stop filling the landfills to capacity and beyond? Well there are many and the majority of households are getting advice and help from their local council and government by way of having more than one rubbish bin in which to put out their rubbish. Along with this there are also other ways that you can help to cut down on the amount of rubbish thrown away, all it takes is some thought and a little common sense.

One of the biggest factors which accounts for a lot of household rubbish is the actual packaging of materials, when we buy something it is often packed more than it needs to be and packaging has been known to account for around a third off the waste that goes into out bins.

While we cannot change what we buy in the shops and force retailers to use less packaging we can help when it comes to throwing it away. Wherever possible breakdown the packaging rather than throwing it away whole, it takes just a few minutes to tear up a cardboard cereal box and even less if you have a shredder.

Simply tear it into pieces small enough to fit into the shredder and shred it, if you have small pets such as hamsters, mice or rabbits then save the shredded material and use it as bedding instead of buying it form the pet store. This is an excellent way of not only recycling but also saving you money on bedding for your pets.

Recycle as much as you can, for example if you use notepaper to jot down notes then don’t just use one side but use both sides before throwing it away and again this too can be shredded. If you have bottles of pop that come in the two litre plastic bottles then these can be washed and turned into such things as pen as pencil holders, two or three cut down to different sizes can be used and taped together then painted as caddies for pens, pencils, clips and staples.

Cutting the bottom off one and using it to cover small seedling plants will work like a mini propagator. There are many ways in which you can help make the world a better place and safeguard the future to ensure that we don’t run out of space for landfills and it can also shave pounds off your shopping bill.

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