Mission recyclable – Global Recycling Day 2022
“Once you pop, you just can’t stop” The famous slogan from Pringles encourages consumption and yet, the Pringles tube can’t currently be recycled… Or can it? We’ve produced some waste and recycling top tips with Bromley Council and Parisa has been on a mission to find local hacks for hard-to-recycle objects in Bromley too.
Every year, recycling saves over 700 million tonnes in CO2 emissions. Our council reports that “the rates of recycling within Bromley are among the highest in London, and this is because most of our Bromley residents recycle as much as they can”.
The trouble with Pringles tubes is that “These tubes are made from a number of different materials such as paper, plastic, and metal which are hard to separate and recycle”. Many residents have taken to separating the materials themselves. A worthwhile activity if you can guarantee the materials are truly separated, otherwise they shouldn’t be added to your recycling. When non-recyclable items are placed in a recycling box, it increases the risk of an entire lorry load of recycling being rejected.
Polystyrene is much more simple to identify, it’s plastic. But it can’t be recycled. Definitely leave polystyrene out of your recycling boxes.
Another material criticised for being difficult to recycle is tetra packs. With the rise in alternative kinds of milk, so the tetra pack becomes more common. If you’re based in Bromley, you can put this in your green, plastics/glass/tins/cans box.
Three top tips from Bromley Council include:
- Tetra Pack/cartons and empty aerosols can be recycled in your green plastics, glass, tins and cans box.
- You can have as many recycling boxes as you need in order to recycle more. Hurrah!
- Keeping paper and cardboard dry before collection is extremely important to help protect the quality of the materials collected.
Wash and squash
Whilst your lids can be either on or off bottles, ideally recycling should be washed and squashed before adding to your bins. Bromley Council produces an information leaflet What_Can_I_Recycle with more details on recycling, you can also check their website for more information here: https://www.bromley.gov.uk/recycling-rubbish-waste
Mission recyclable
Parisa takes you on a whistle-stop tour of places in Bromley where hard to recycle materials are accepted. Watch how she gets on and find out where to take empty cosmetics, soft squishy plastics and rags.
Please sir, can I have some more?
Everybody’s perception of food waste is different, but the important thing is that minimising food waste is extremely important to help protect the environment.
And there’s no delicate way to say it, but there’s a difference between food decomposing in landfill to human excrement. The food decomposing in landfill is much more harmful. It releases more greenhouse gases. So a minute on the lips, a year on the hips is better for the environment if not your waistline!
Whilst we don’t encourage overeating, far from it in fact, the best alternative is to try our top tips for reducing food waste:
- Meal plan
- Buy less
- Use leftovers, don’t keep them in the fridge and then throw them away because you didn’t know what to do with them.
- Store food well so that it lasts longer.
We have more food waste reduction tips in our Get Greener section too.
Got questions?
Global Recycling Day is a great opportunity to assess how effective your recycling is and make some small changes in your household.
Visit The Hub and speak to one of our lovely and knowledgeable volunteers for advice and discussions to support you on your climate change journey. You can also join our Facebook community for more of the same.
We’re in it together.