9 Easy Ways to Recycle At Home
In the goal to become more eco-friendly, recycling can be confusing and intimidating but it doesn’t need to be. Recycling can be one of the easiest ways to do your bit for the planet and doesn’t have to just involve throwing out trash in a particular way. There are plenty of recycling ideas you can do at home.
Read on to find out some tips to recycle the best ways possible as well as learn about some waste recycling ideas you can do at home!
What materials can be recycled
There’s a whole range of household items that can be easily recycled. The following list is by no means exhaustive though and there are plenty of other items around your home that can be recycled either through a recycling centre or your local recycling scheme.
- Glass bottles
- Plastic bottles Paper rolls (from kitchen towel and toilet paper)
- Stale bread
- Clothes
- Books
- Vegetable peelings
- Plastic Pots
- Corks
- Dryer sheets
- Coffee grounds
- Egg cartons
- Shoe boxes
- Old and damaged tiles
- Bottle caps
- Mailing tubes
- CDs and DVDs
- Light bulbs
- Christmas trees
- Carpets
Tips for recycling
1. Understand your local recycling system
2. Don’t guess what materials can be recycled
3. Rinse your containers
4. Keep lids attached to bottles and jars
5. Flatten your cartons
6. Beware of black plastic
7. Reuse where you can
If you’re trying to minimize the amount of waste you produce, reusing items is one of the best ways to make those items more eco-friendly. You can reuse glass jars for a number of different things so are well worth keeping for future cooking projects, art sessions, and storage needs.
Upcycling
There are a whole host of different upcycling projects you can do around your home. Turn old bottles and jars into pretty lanterns by filling them with inexpensive string lights, use old egg boxes as seed trays, or make hand puppets from old, clean socks, among many other things. The possibilities are endless so take a look around online for some inspiration.
Downcycling
On the opposite side of the coin, downcycling can be just as useful as upcycling. It involves stripping down items to component parts, usually with less of an inherent value than the original item.
Downcycling usually happens on an industrial scale - we see it with cars being stripped for parts all the time - but anyone looking to make creative things from waste material at home will find examples of downcycling that work on a smaller scale too. You can make personal projects out of all kinds of different materials such as using old clothes as dusters or linings for pet beds, turning old CDs and DVDs into drinks coasters, or cutting up old plastic bottles to create mobiles with.
We hope this has helped to inspire you to look into more ways to recycle your waste at home. As always, Greens Steel is here to help cheer you on. Replace those single-use plastic bottles with areusable stainless steel water bottle and learn more about the importance of using less plastic with our blog “How to reduce plastic pollution with stainless steel”.
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