The Isle of Wight Council, with waste partners Amey, is supporting Recycle Now’s national Recycle Week (Monday 17th to Friday 21st October).
Organised by WRAP under the Recycle Now brand, Recycle Week this year is about getting real with our waste, about where we are, where we want to be and how we’re all going to get there — together.
The community has more questions than ever about their recycling, and the council is supporting Recycle Now by giving people real answers throughout the week and beyond.
This year’s campaign will focus on 3 common questions that many of us have when it comes to recycling:
- Does my recycling really make a difference?
- One item in the wrong bin can’t hurt, can it?
- Recycling is so confusing, isn’t it?
Recycle Now will be providing recycling information and insights to answer these questions and clarify that by recycling we really can make a difference.
In fact, recycling in the UK saves 18 million tonnes of Co2 a year — all these factors reduce greenhouse gas emissions which lead to climate change.
Craig Stephens, campaign manager for Recycle Now, said:
“By recycling even better we can have a big impact on our environment.
Article continues below this advertisement “On the Island it’s no different — more and more people are recycling, so the next step is to make sure we get our recycling right. So come on, Isle of Wight, keep up the great work and let’s make the Island’s recycling better than ever before!”
Natasha Dix, the council’s strategic manager for environment, said:
“By getting our recycling right we can have an impact. Wrong items in the bin can make whole lorry loads un-recyclable through contamination. This means other people’s recycling efforts are wasted, as well as your own.
“The Isle of Wight is an island of recyclers — and there are some simple things we can all do to make our recycling even better.”
Top tips for recycling:
- Recycle more of these items: aerosols, food waste in the kerbside food waste collection.
- Simply rinse your food packaging/bottles/cans in your washing up water and pop in the recycling to prevent contamination.
- Make sure these never go in the recycling bin: nappies, sanitary waste, packages covered in grease, paint or dirt; broken glass. All of these can contaminate the rest of the recycling in the back of the recycling collection truck.
- Nappies should go in your household (black) waste, as can broken glassware. Just wrap it carefully to avoid the collection crew hurting themselves or dispose of it at your local Household Waste Recovery Centre.
To find out more about Recycle Week, visit www.recyclenow.org.uk/RecycleWeek.
Okay , but rinsing things before they go in the rubbish? That wastes water, and more than likely water that has been heated as not many people like cold water do they? So which is the greater demon? Washing rubbish to throw away, or throwing rubbish away without washing it? Either way it all ends up in the back of the dust cart!
Maybe it is the way it gets sorted in the end that requires looking at? Make things difficult for people and they don’t bother.. it will all go in the black bin!
Just look at how much rubbish is dumped around the island since access to the ‘public’ tip was restricted.
Any used plastic that I know is recyclable I wash up or rinse of an evening after I have done my washing up, before I place it in the recycling bin. The bins are collected alternately one week being recycling the next general waste which is when we can also put used batteries in a clear plastic bag on top of the bin as these are also being recycled or disposed of safely. Should someone doing their washing up throughout the day there is no harm in just rinsing the recycled items in the used dishwashing water. Some people really do not help themselves or the environment by their attitudes which is why the climates and the weather is changing so much to a disastrous degree for everyone in the world.
perhaps june you should look up the images of the rubbish and pollution in other parts of the world – rivers that are just covered in floating plastic etc and then you would realise that your washing up one plastic cup and putting it in a recycling bin is about as effective at reducing climate change as removing a twig from a forest fire and hoping that it will put the fire out.
Not too difficult to wash up items (as described) for recycling, what is annoying is that this Country still appears to be sending recycled waste to other countries to deal with.