Make recycling easy
To ensure that your household recycles as much as possible, you should set up a system to make it easy for everybody, from the youngest to the eldest. Buy user-friendly containers for recycling and make sure everybody knows which container is which. You could use a colour code; for example, green could be for glass, blue for plastic, white for paper and card or you could label the containers. One way to make sure that nobody gets mixed up is to have a picture of the right material on each container. Another way to make it easier is by reducing the amount of waste in your house. Buy loose apples, for example, instead of those packaged in plastic; take bags with you when you shop so you won’t need to get more plastic ones. Be less of a consumer!
Make recycling a habit
Be consistent with recycling; if your children see you doing it all the time, they will accept it as part of life, which will be better for everybody in the long run. As soon as something recyclable is finished with, either put it into the appropriate recycling bin yourself or ask one of the children to do it. Remember that if it has contained food or drink, it will need to be washed first, but rather than waste fresh water doing it, use the last of the washing up water before you let it out, or even use old bath water. Disposing of the recycling should be a habit as well. Councils have a designated collection day for recyclable waste, but if you are being particularly efficient, you may have too much for them to take. In certain circumstances, such as if you have a big family, you may be allowed more recycling containers, but there are recycling centres in many supermarket car parks or your council will have one somewhere within the region.
Make recycling fun
If you’re separating used packaging to keep it from landfill sites, there’s nothing to stop you and your children from recycling it into something for them. Many products come in reusable containers, such as plastic ice-cream cartons and cardboard hot-chocolate packages, which come with a plastic lid. Children might like to decorate these containers, using paint, glue and glitter or even by attaching brightly coloured wrappers from sweets. They can personalise them for themselves or for friends and they make great places to keep small toys or coloured pens. Other recyclables can also be used for this kind of environmentally friendly craft activity; egg cartons and old cardboard rolls from kitchen paper or tinfoil can be used to make fun puppets or Christmas decorations.
Once recycling is part of your family routine, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do more of it before. With costs such as energy prices and your supermarket bill rising in the UK, the possibility of keeping council tax bills down must surely be a great reason to keep on doing it.
