Kirsty Warren
Recycle this…

Recycling in sussex

Clothing and textiles

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Did you know that in the UK, around 49% of all unwanted textiles are thrown in the rubbish bin each year? The good news is that there are lots of simple ways to keep clothing in use, and out of the bin.

Clothes that are in good condition can be donated and sold for re-use. This is an important way to minimise the overall impact that clothing has on our environment.

• Donate items to registered charities and re-use organisations - some, such as The British Heart Foundation, offer a free collection service from your home.

• Many high street retailers such as Primark and M&S offer clothing donation banks in-store. These are sometimes called ‘bring back schemes’. • If you are fundraising for your school, church or organisations such as Girl Guides or Scouts, there are textile companies who can arrange a collection to help you to raise money for your cause.

• Ask a local animal shelter or veterinary hospital if they could use them. They may accept old duvets, quilts pillows and cushions to help keep animals warm and comfortable.

• Try listing them on a clothes swap or reselling sites. But if you’ve got clothes full of holes or otherwise beyond repair, you can still recycle them. Pop them into a bag and take them to your favourite charity shop. When you hand them in tell them ‘This is for the Rag Bin’. These items are recycled and made into new items, such as padding for chairs and car seats, cleaning cloths and industrial blankets.

Do not dispose of textiles at home.

You can drop off your unwanted items at recycling points and clothing and textile banks in supermarket and local car parks at a time to suit you – enter your postcode below to find your nearest. www.recyclenow.com/what-to-do-with/clothing-textiles-0

Books

Do you have shelves full of books, hardbacks and paperbacks, that you will not read or use for reference? They are there because, well, that is where they have been for years!

Well first of all, do look at all your books. Do you have any really old books? They could have a value. I had a copy of ‘When You Were Very Young’ by A A Milne. I contacted Jonkers Rare Books online and they paid me £20. I paid for postage and they paid £20 into my bank account.

Another option is to download an app from www.Ziffit.com. This will allow you to scan your books and tell you instantly if it has a value. For example, James Patterson’s The Ninth Month = 60p, and Lynne Truss, Eats Shoots and Leaves = 53p. Imagine what a whole shelf is worth?

Another site to try is www.webuyanybooks.co.uk. This website specialises in those big expensive academic tomes. Happy scanning.

And finally, if they cannot go to a charity shop, or you cannot sell them, you can take them to the Household Waste Recycling Centre – ‘The Tip’ to you and I. There is a special bin just for books, all will be recycled.

Soft plastic bags and packets

You can now recycle a lot more soft plastics than crisp packets and stretchy plastic at many supermarket stores (www.shorturl.at/cekFR).

Soft plastics are lightweight plastics that cannot be placed in recycling bins at home. Think plastic film lids on yoghurt pots, soft fruit punnets and ready meals, as well as plastic crisp packets, pasta bags and chocolate or biscuit wrappers.

All major supermarkets are offering this service: Co-op, Tesco, Waitrose, Morrisons and Sainsburys. When you get into the swing of it, you will be taking a carrier bag full of recycling to the supermarket every time you visit!

Additional: Please bear in mind supermarkets do move around their recycling bins, so if you cannot find it do ask in store, and your local store may be different.
Waitrose – At the far end of the store after the checkouts by the café.
Robert Dyas – offers battery recycling by the entrance door.
Boots – On the right as you step inside.
Marks and Spencer – Behind the checkout desks.

WSCC recycling your ‘hard’ plastic (bottles, tubs and trays etc) and the supermarkets accepting your ‘soft’ plastic (bags, packets). All the plastic packaging you get from Supermarkets can now be recycled!

But what happens to it? Soft plastic can now be recycled via physical recycling which turns it into other items such as heavy-duty outdoor plastic furniture and roads; and chemical recycling, which turns it back into oil, that can be used for making new plastic resins for fuel and other purposes. Please also support your local Terracycle collection teams. www.terracycle.com/en-GB/brigades will show you where and what you can recycle, for the benefit of a local charity or school. The Stand Up Inn and Lindfield Primary Academy are prime examples in Lindfield.

The cereal manufacturers are changing their packaging so the good news is that some liners can be recycled with carrier bags at larger stores.
You will need to look at the cardboard outer, and the recycling instructions on the cardboard outer of individual packets. Some manufacturers, and these include Kelloggs, Nestle and Sainsburys’ own brand are changing the composition of the liner to a recyclable plastic and the instructions on the box have been changed to reflect this, and now tell you that the inner liner can now be ‘recycle with carrier bags at larger stores’. What this means is that these inner wrappers can now be put into the plastic bag recycling bins at most large supermarket stores.

Please make sure these are all empty and clean so they can be recycled! So now you recycle your soft plastic, that cannot be recycled by WSCC, at your supermarket.

Old computer cables and IT

Have a clear out of all those old IT items and cables sitting in a drawer or box. MSDC will collect small electrical items and recycle them. Kerbside collections of small electrical appliances and household batteries are every two weeks.

Items should be left out with your scheduled black lid rubbish bin. Collection space on the bin lorry is very limited. If your collection is missed, please hold on to your items and place them out with your next scheduled black top rubbish bin.

Keep the cable with the item. Little and often, in a plastic carrier bag helps. Recycling – take data cables, phones, tablets and desktop PCs to Vodafone stores.

Items accepted are: small electrical appliances such as IT and smart devices like desktop PCs; laptops; tablets; fax machines; printers; phones; smartphones; smart speakers and fitness wearables.


Repair – does your local Repair Café repair electrical items?


Recycling – take to your local recycling centre – the tip. Did you know that all electricals taken to the tip are recycled? To find your nearest local electrical recycling site, I would recommend this website: www.recycleyourelectricals.org.uk Do use the filter option: by item/ distance, for lots more options; donate; repair; recycle.