Plastic

Many air fresheners come in either aerosol cans or small plastic units; both should be disposed of with your general household rubbish and will be sorted at the resource recovery facility.

Why not experiment by making your own air freshener using a refillable spray bottle filled with water and a small amount of essential oil.

Ideally, purchase a ‘Bag-for-life’, which are large, tough, reusable shopping bags. This will help reduce both the amount of carrier bags being sent to landfill, and the resources needed to produce carrier bags.

If you do use carrier bags for your shopping, reuse them whenever possible. Some shops offer money back or some form of reward to all customers reusing their old carrier bags, see your local supermarket for details. In addition, most supermarkets also provide carrier bag recycling bins.

Commercial CDs (not home-made) can be reused through charity shops, freecycle, or try selling them at car-boot sales, or through online sellers such as e-bay.

Unwanted CDs can also be used as bird deterrence in the garden when hung up around vegetable plots etc. or reused as drinks coasters.

Consider purchasing a tree with a root so that it can be planted in the garden and used the following year or purchase a tree from a local, sustainably grown plantation.

Artificial trees will last for many years but if you do need to dispose of yours consider if it could be reused, if not small trees can be disposed of with your normal rubbish. resource recovery facility. For large trees, see bulky waste.

See textiles

Do not place in a recycling bank, as they can explode when crushed. The cans can be disposed of with your general household rubbish, and metal cans will be extracted at the resource recovery facility for recycling, plastic deodorant bottles will be turned into fuel in the resource recovery facility.

Do not crush or place on a fire

These can be returned to some garden centres for reuse. If broken, clay pots can be placed at the bottom of new planter pots to help improve drainage. Please do not put plastic or clay pots into kerbside garden collections as this contaminates the load.

See textiles

Try and buy your milk in returnable glass bottles and make sure that you return them to the milkman. On average the glass milk bottles used by the milkmen are reused 24 times. This saves energy and resources each time they are returned to the milkman. Plastic ones should be disposed of with your normal rubbish and will be turned into fuel in the resource recovery facility.

In the UK around 3 billion nappies are thrown away each year and around 90% end up in landfill, which can take hundreds of years to break down. If you choose to use disposable nappies choose ones that are dioxin free and/or unbleached. This should be marked on the packaging.

An alternative is to use Real Nappies made from cotton/hemp/bamboo which can be washed and used over and over again. Click here for more information on real nappies.

Most products require some packaging for health or product information reasons but you can try to avoid buying items with excess packaging.
Packaging components include:

Paper and board

Plastics - rigid and flexible

Glass

Metals - tinplate and aluminium

Try to reduce the amount of waste packaging by:

Buying lightly or non-packaged products

Avoiding wasteful or gimmicky packaging

Refusing extra bagging

Using products with refillable containers whenever possible.

See also plastic containers

See carrier bags.

Try to reuse plastic containers before throwing them away e.g. ice cream tubs for storage containers, yoghurt pots for plant seedlings.
Local playgroups and schools may want plastic containers for play materials.

Otherwise, these can be placed with your general rubbish and will be converted into fuel at the resource recovery facility.

Plastic cups are not currently recycled on the Island. However, they can be recycled into plastic pencils and rulers. Find out more at www.remarkable.co.uk and www.save-a-cup.co.uk.

Otherwise, these can be placed with your general rubbish and will be converted into fuel at the resource recovery facility.

Always try to reduce and reuse as much as possible (e.g. refill, make plant pots).

Otherwise, these can be placed with your general rubbish and will be converted into fuel at the resource recovery facility.

These can be reuse by donating them to hospital radio stations, playgroups, schools and charity shops, or freecycle, or try selling them at car boot sales

If you have toys and games you no longer want they could be reuse.

Otherwise, these can be placed with your general rubbish and will be converted into fuel at the resource recovery facility.

Working computer games can be reuse. Some stores now operate systems to re-sell used computer games, ask your local store if they will trade your used games; sell them yourself through online sellers or car boot sales, or donate them through freecycle or charity shops.

Much of the wrapping paper available now is not paper, but plastic or foil coated.
If the wrapping paper is shiny, or will not stay scrunched in a ball it should be disposed of with your normal rubbish and will be converted into fuel at the resource recovery facility.