Happy Global Recycling Day! Today celebrates the crucial role that recycling plays in helping our planet. It’s a day to focus on all you recycling heroes out there!
Global Recycling Day’s theme this year is #RecyclingHeroes – those people who champion innovative recycling practices and habits around the world.
How can you become a recycling hero?
At First Mile, we make it easy for everyone to be a recycling hero. We help over 30,000 UK businesses with waste and recycling, offering zero-to-landfill waste collection and looking for the best environmental solutions for every customer.
Here are our top tips this Global Recycling Day to help you be an out of this world recycling hero:
1. Separate your recycling
Sorting your items into different bins or 'streams' can help ensure as much as possible get recycled.
We make this easy by providing free recycling posters so it’s easy to identify what goes where.
2. Avoid food waste...
It has more impact than you think, causing just as much environmental damage as plastic waste. We are pretty bad for it in the UK, as the biggest producer of food waste in Europe.
Try to cut down on food waste much as possible - save leftovers for lunch and use a compost bin if you can. Check out our food-recycling service, which sends food waste to make renewable energy and offers easy food-recycling solutions!
3. Recycle your paper, or better yet, go paperless!
See our paper recycling service to ensure as much of your paper as possible is recycled. And switching to paperless billing can help to reduce the amount of paper you use and save trees.
4. Recycle your old gadgets responsibly
According to recent research from Leeds University, keeping your electronic gadgets for at least seven years is one of six lifestyle shifts you can take to help avert the climate crisis.
And when your gadgets are no longer useable, take a look at Recycle Your Electricals to find out more about what to do with them and think of using our WEEE recycling services.
5. Get clued up on plastics
Check out the symbols on plastic packaging to see what type of plastic you have and where you can recycle it.
See this for an explanation of the different symbols and what they mean. And here’s a useful guide to what you can recycle and where.
6. Buy recycled products
Buying things that are made from recycled products not only helps the planet, it also supports eco-friendly companies so that they can keep producing them.
7. Remember the waste hierarchy: reduce, reuse, recycle
Think about whether you can reduce the things you buy and whether they can be reused before you need to recycle them.
8. Use fewer things made of plastic
Scary fact: 91% of plastic created is not recycled. If you can, try cutting down on single-use plastics like plastic bags, straws and drinks containers. There's so many alternatives these days.
Why not take the Plastic Free July challenge, and see how many ways you can cut down on plastic?
9. Only put clean, dry things in the recycling box
No greasy pizza boxes! And give things a rinse when you can. Dirty items in your recycling can often be classified as contaminated which means they are unable to be recycled.
10. Recycle everything with First Mile!
No matter what you want to recycle (cooking oil, coat hangers, coffee grounds, batteries, PPE – you name it), the chances are we can recycle it for you.
Because we believe in a world where you can recycle everything. Get in touch today to see how we can help you and your business.
