I’ve always tried to do a bit of recycling, but in recent months I’ve started taking it a lot more seriously.
Eating more fresh fruit and vegetables means there’s less packaging coming into the house, which isn’t a bad thing.
It’s also become marginally easier to buy products that have less packaging.
For example, while I wasn’t in the market for chocolate eggs this Easter, I did notice that some of the more popular brands, like Cadbury, have reduced the amount of non-recyclable packaging they’re using. They claim to have reduced the packaging on their eggs by 40%, which converts to over 2000 fewer lorry loads!
Here’s an image to illustrate the change:
Pretty much all the paper and cardboard, tin cans, egg trays, milk cartons, any plastic packaging for food that isn’t covered in blood etc.,
I hadn’t been recycling a lot of the cans previously, but once I started doing it I noticed a couple of things.
First of all I hadn’t realised how many cans I was using. Between cans of soup, tomatoes and tuna the sheer volume of tin cans that had been going into the rubbish bin was significant. This also means that there’s more space in my normal bin for things that I can’t recycle (yet).
Another thing that I hadn’t been recycling was milk cartons. Oddly enough we’ve been recycling them in the office for a long time, but I hadn’t been making the effort at home.
There is a small bit of extra work to do if you start recycling cans and empty cartons. You have to rinse them! But it’s not much work and I think it’s worth the effort.
The only thing that’s annoying about recycling where I live at the moment is that there is no collection for glass, so you have to find a bottle bank every few weeks.
Will this help me lose weight? No. I just think it’s a positive move to improve my overall lifestyle.
