What Can I Recycle Near Me?

—

by

James Walters
in
What Can I Recycle Near Me to help climate change

Here we look at; What Can I Recycle Near Me?; Is Plastic Recyclable?; and, Other Recycling Programmes. This is one of over 40 ideas in our Sustainability Roadmap with Solutions to Climate Change, and part of our series on Growing, Eating, and Living Sustainably.

If you already know that it’s important to try and send zero waste to landfill, here are the options to recycle even the items that you can’t normally recycle:

  1. Use Ecosia to search for ‘What does my council recycle’
  2. Use Recycle Now’s recycling locator
  3. Try TerraCycle’s Recycling Programmes
  4. Try Ecobricks Recycling Programme

If you want some more facts before making any decisions, let’s get into the details:

In the Sustainability Roadmap I give some examples of ways that you can Recycle the Items You Can’t Normally Recycle: I’ll cover those options in a bit more detail in this piece. I’ll also answer some common questions about recycling such as “What can I recycle?” and “Is plastic recyclable?”.

But, before we get into the recycling options, let’s cover an important point first.

Recycling Is Not the Solution

Recycling is better than landfill. Recycling is also better than burning waste to generate electricity, which is an intensive process.

Recycling still consumes energy and creates more waste. And, just because you put something into recycling, it doesn’t mean it can get recycled. It may still end up as waste in landfill.

The solution is not creating the waste in the first place: Always think how you can switch from throw away or recycle to reusables such as:

  1. Reusable water bottles and coffee cups
  2. Reusable notepads
  3. Milk in reusable glass bottles
  4. You can also try prioritising buying used instead of new

However, even after doing all of that, we still need businesses to take responsibility. We need businesses to pack products in a way that does not create unnecessary waste.

A circular economy is the best approach: Think Milk in reusable glass bottles. This has to be the future of all products. Packaging that’s reused and products that go back to the manufacturer at the end of their life, to be recycled and reused again.

What Can I Recycle Near Me?

What can I recycle is a common question. It can be confusing because each council has slightly different rules.

I live in an area covered by Wychavon District Council that offers a fairly decent recycling programme for:

  1. Mixed glass bottles and jars
  2. Plastic packaging (not black plastic or flexible plastics)
  3. Mixed paper (not glittery, wrapping paper, metallic, film coated, or sticky)
  4. Cardboard (not with dirty food waste, film, bags, plastics)
  5. Cartons

You can find your local council recycling website by searching Ecosia (every search with Ecosia plants a tree!) – You can search from here for ‘What does my council recycle’.

Recycling Near Me

To find recycling near you; apart from using Ecosia to search for ‘What does my council recycle’, you can also use Recycle Now’s recycling locator to find what you can recycle at home as well as finding your nearest recycling point.

Recycle Now’s recycling locator includes a lot of different recycling schemes, such as:

Co-Op Soft Plastic Recycling:

  1. Just pop your soft plastics into their recycling units and they’ll do the rest. Soft plastics are lightweight plastics. Think;
  2. crisp packets
  3. bread bags
  4. plastic film lids on yoghurt pots
  5. soft fruit punnets and ready meals
  6. pasta bags
  7. chocolate or biscuit wrappers
  8. Find the full list here of what you can recycle at Co-op

Bottle Banks Near Me

Most supermarkets have recycling bins and bottles banks in their car parks.

If you’re looking for bottle banks near you, you can also use Recycle Now’s recycling locator.

Is Plastic Recyclable?

Is plastic recyclable is a very common question.

Again, the best approach is to do everything possible to avoid using plastic in the first place, such as switching to reusable water bottles and coffee cups.

It’s also important to know that plastic can only be recycled 1 to 10 times, which is why it’s best to cut down on buying anything that includes plastics.

It’s likely that your local council offers some form of plastic recycling. Start by searching from here for ‘What does my council recycle’ or use Recycle Now’s recycling locator. Alternatively, here are some examples of hard to recycle plastics:

Co-Op Soft Plastic Recycling

  1. Just pop your soft plastics into their recycling units and they’ll do the rest
  2. Soft plastics are lightweight plastics. Think;
  3. crisp packets
  4. bread bags
  5. plastic film lids on yoghurt pots
  6. soft fruit punnets and ready meals
  7. pasta bags
  8. chocolate or biscuit wrappers
  9. Find the full list here of what you can recycle at Co-op

Sainsbury’s Flexible Plastic Recycling

  1. Dry food flexible plastic
  2. Other food flexible plastic
  3. Pouches and sachets
  4. Non-food flexible plastic
  5. Find more details here about Sainsbury’s flexible plastic recycling

TerraCycle Offers a Lot of Recycling Programmes

TerraCycle works with manufacturers around the world to offer recycling programmes. Taking a look at their website can seem a bit daunting because they offer so many recycling programmes.

I find it’s best to save up all the stuff you can’t recycle with your council or at your local supermarket, sort it into different types (such as pet food wrappers etc.) then find suitable programmes on the TerraCycle website.

Find Out About the Different TerraCycle Recycling Programmes

Ecobricks Recycling for Plastic Bottles and Flexible Plastics

This is a great concept.

Ecobricks is where you pack plastics into plastic bottles so they can be reused to build stuff… Nice.

Find Out About Ecobricks Recycling Programme

Other Recycling Programmes

TerraCycle offers a LOT more than just recycling for plastics.

Find Out About the Different TerraCycle Recycling Programmes

If you can’t find polythene recycling near you, our local council recycling page says that Polyprint will accept polythene products for recycling. You can send the following items:

  1. Bags used to cover electrical appliances or furniture
  2. Bread bags (shaken out)
  3. Bin bags (clean)
  4. Bubblewrap
  5. Outers from can/drink multipacks and plastic joining rings
  6. Carrier bags (not those labelled compostable/biodegradable)
  7. Cling film (clean)
  8. Courier bags (without paper labels)
  9. Mailing wrappers (without paper labels)
  10. Polythene recycling categories 2 and 4 (as marked on the film)
  11. Supermarket fruit & vegetable bags
  12. Toilet roll or nappy pack outers

You’ll Need to Pay for the Postage to Send What You Have to This Address:

  1. Please make sure you pay the full amount to send the envelope or package. Any envelopes or packages where the full amount has not been paid will be sent to landfill.
  2. You must include your contact details on the package
  3. You must also mark the package “FOR RECYCLING”
  4. You must send the package to: Polyprint, Earl Road, Rackheath Industrial Estate, Rackheath, Norwich, NR13 6NT.

Here Is What You Can Do

Want to Continue Your Journey?

Where Next?

There is so much inspiring information to give you ideas of how to help climate change by growing, eating, and living sustainably, you can:

  1. Read Our Articles
  2. Sign-Up to Our Free Email Newsletter
  3. Get Started and Vote with Your Money
  4. Try the Sustainability Roadmap
  5. Use the Company Directory
  6. Support Nafford Junction

Help Us Inspire Others

If you are passionate about helping climate change, please consider supporting Nafford Junction, you can:

  1. Become a Patron to Give Regular Contributions
  2. Buy Me a Coffee to Make a One-Off Contribution
  3. Create for Us and Publish Thought Provoking Content
  4. Become an Inspiring Leader and Advertise with Us
  5. Go to NaffordJunction.co.uk/support

Sources Used to Create This

  1. Sustainability Roadmap to Help Climate Change
  2. Soft plastic packaging
  3. Helping our customers to recycle flexible plastics
  4. Use Ecosia Search Engine and Help Stop Climate Change
  5. How Many Times Can Plastic Be Recycled?
  6. Local recycling
  7. TerraCycle
  8. Ecobricks.org | Plastic Transition

Production Notes

This was produced by me, James Walters, as a personal project to help stop climate change by inspiring others to grow, eat, and live sustainably.

Any advice given is the opinion of those involved and does not constitute medical, financial, or legal advice.

* We include links we think you will find useful. If you buy through those links, we may earn a small commission. It’s one way to support our work and to inspire as many people as possible.