How Can I Make My Home Waste-free?

Over time we have become a very wasteful society. In our thrill-a-minute, must-buy-everything-new society, it’s not easy to banish waste at home. But ultimately preventing waste is of benefit to everyone; it does your conscious a world of good, and helps protect the environment, so all in in it seems pretty worth it. But even if you don’t make it to 100% waste-free, any little change you do make can do wonders. If you’re still not convinced, take a look at this list of tips on waste disposal and recycling and choose just a couple to implement, and before you even know it, you’ll never have to worry about wasting anything again.

•    Recycle everything – gone are the days when milk bottles were virtually the only thing you could recycle. These days almost everything can be recycled with minimal effort – the majority of councils now promote recycling at home and offer services to deal with everyday recyclable waste from your home. If this isn’t the case for you, find out where you nearest tip is and take any excess junk there rather than throwing it away. Not only is it good for the environment, but chucking things into a tip is oddly therapeutic, so good stress relief too. Alternatively, turn to a local clearance company for rubbish collection.

•    Compost your food waste – not a solution for everyone (especially top floor flat dwellers), but for those who do have a garden, then compost bins are an excellent way to prevent waste whilst being able to do something positive for your environment. Many councils will provide you with a compost bin you can use for garden waste collection if you ask, but if not, pop down to your local garden centre and pick one up for next to nothing. When you consider the good you’re doing, it’s a hell of an investment.

•    Sell off your stuff - Various household miscellanea are prime suspects for creating waste, often because people simple don’t know what to do with it all. But thankfully, because of the rise of the eco-worriers, recycling is a big business, and one even you can make money from if you’re savvy enough. There are companies online who will buy virtually everything from you including clothes, books, DVDs, games, and old gadgets, all you need to do is hunt them down, follow their instructions and offload your unwanted belongings you ended up with after a house clearance onto them. Admittedly you won’t make your millions this way, but if you need to dump some junk this is a waste friendly way to do it, plus you get a bit of extra cash too. But if you’re not worried about the cash, or can’t be bothered to jump through the necessary hoops, then donating your stuff to a local charity shop is the way to go, and you get extra kudos for being charitable. A garage sale is always an option too.

•    Re-use old packaging – whether it’s recyclable or not, if there’s something an old packet can be used for, then do it. Don’t think about junk disposal right away. Whether it goes in the kids’ craft box to become a doll’s bed, or a sauce jar which becomes a container for somethings else, virtually every package can have a new use if you thing imaginatively enough. Our favourite is backing old crisp packets and turning them into funky key-rings (if you have no idea what we’re talking about, have a look on YouTube, you’ll be amazed).

•    Don’t buy what you don’t need – simple in theory right? This is probably the easiest and hardest tip to follow, easy because it requires no effort on your part; hard because we love to shop. But unless you are truly in desperate need of something, save yourself the waste (of time, money and effort as well as physical waste) and use what you’ve already got. Simple!