When it comes to helping the environment, one of the first actions that comes to mind that we can all do is recycling.
The action of recycling not only prevents packaging from polluting the environment and injuring wildlife, it adds to our economies and increases it’s sustainability.
How to tell you can recycle something
When sorting out your rubbish at home, it sounds like a simple thing to do to split up the recycling. Especially because of the three-arrow recycling symbol that tells you something doesn’t have to go to landfill.
However, there are quite a few different versions of the recycling symbol that can tell you specifically what parts of the product can be recycled.
One of the most important symbols above is the black symbol with a line through it. For me, the symbol could give the message that this packaging is not recyclable. But it actually means that the majority of Local Authorities (LAs) cannot/ do not currently recycle the material but some LAs are still able to.
This makes it tricky to know exactly what can and what cannot be recycled from county to county. Click here to go to recyclenow.com, which can tell you where your nearest recycling points are for different materials.
Plastic
Plastics are probably the most recognisable material that can be recycled, especially after the BBC documentary Blue Planet 2. The series showed how the break-down of plastic is poisoning many marine ecosystems.
But even within plastic there are different categorises, some of which are harder to recycle than others.
You can see that some of the plastic we go through the most such as crisp packets are the hardest plastics to recycle. But if it is at all possible, it should tell you what you can do on the packaging. For example some crisp packets tell you to recycle them along with carrier bags at supermarkets.
Where do I recycle…
Apart from plastic and paper, there are a number of items that can be ambiguous. Here are some items that can be cycled at certain locations:
- Crisp packets
- Foil
- Batteries
- Carrier bags
If every family increased the level of recycling by just a few items a week, it would have a huge difference across the country for our wildlife, our health and our countryside. It’s one of the best examples of how each of us can do something small to add into big change.
Next Time – Wildlife in the garden
In next weeks blog I’ll be talking the best garden for wildlife and how size isn’t everything.
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