40 ways to reduce waste

1. Recycle plastic bottles and other plastics, or anything else for that matter if you don't have the councils full doorstep materials collection by using the Magpie Opt In Scheme. More details from Magpie 01273 565642. They also do collections for businesses
2. Ecover product refills available at Sunny Foods: 76 Beaconsfield Road, Brighton, tel: 01273 507 879
3. Scoop and weigh – to cut down on packaging. Available at Pulse in the Open Market off London Road. They also do refills of Ecover products
4. Recycle unwanted CDs (free software etc) via the CD recycling scheme offered by Beacon Press. Tel: 01825 768611 or email: print@beaconpress.co.uk
5. Emmaus collect house/office furniture, electrical appliances & household goods. More details tel: 01273 412093
6. Hove YMCA collect house/office furniture, electrical appliances & household goods. More details tel: 01273 731724
7. Wood Recycling Project: Wood Recycling Project, Unit 32-36, Municipal Market, Circus Street, Brighton, BN2 9QF Tel: 01273 / 570500, FAX: 01273 570600, Email: info@woodrecycling.org.uk, Web: www.woodrecycling.org.uk
8. Living Soil "Observer Magazine featured an article on a 'rubbish revolution' that holds the key to a sustainable future. In their compost section, written by Lucy Siegle, the Living Soil system was assessed as the best for recycling food waste, especially for people living within urban and suburban environments." For more info email: info@livingsoil.co.uk
9. Organic vegetable boxes - Avoid unwanted packaging and support organic schemes (e.g. Ashurst Organics, The Orchard, Plumpton, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 3AP, Tel: 01273 891219)
10. Use real nappies - Great Expectations, 41 Lewes Road, Brighton, tel: 01273 622993
11. Christmas Trees - Are collected by the council every year from special collection points in the parks and gardens throughout the city - see the council website under waste & recycling (www.brighton-hove.gov.uk) after Christmas!
12. Grow your own veg - Whitehawk Community Food Project - Encourages participation of local community in organic food growing, through hands-on involvement. Fosters biodiversity of the local environment., 395 Kingsway, Hove, BN3 4QE, 07751 076395 email: thefoodproject@yahoo.co.uk
13. Body shop recycle their empty containers so return them to the shop at 41 North Street Brighton or 22 George Street Hove.
14. Charity shops all over the city need your unwanted clothes - George St, Hove is charity shoppers heaven!
15. Use cloth handkerchiefs and towels in the kitchen
16. Checkout the Natural Collection catalogue for natty products that will help you reduce your waste - including compost bins. www.naturalcollection.com
17. Register with the MPS to cut down on unwanted mail. Tel 020 7291 3310, Fax 020 7323 4226, Email mps@dma.org.uk, Web www.mpsonline.org.uk
18. Contact your bank/building society/credit card and ask them not to send you promotional mail e.g. for loans, credit cards, mortgages etc.
19. Get your bills from British Gas online (and save money too!) http://www.house.co.uk
20. Feeling creative? Pique Assiette (also called Shard Art, Memoryware and bits and pieces mosaics) is a folk art of recycling broken glass, pottery and porcelain and found objects to create decorative pieces for the home and garden. More details here
21. If you haven’t time in the morning to make your own sandwiches, take a lunch box to your favourite sandwich shop. 3JB in North Road are used to me doing this and they don’t complain. Having a coffee or soup then use a thermal cup – keeps it warmer than polystyrene.
22. Use a cloth shopping bag or keep a spare plastic bag in your pocket to reuse. If you get your groceries delivered ask your supplier to take the bags back for recycling.
23. Recycle unwanted plastic bags - take them to Sommerfields or Tescos where they recycle them.
24. Reuse envelopes (re-use labels available from Friends of the Earth 0207 490 1555 - £2.50 for 100)
25. Use rechargeable batteries with a photovoltaic (solar) charger
26. Change to energy saving light bulbs (If every household in the UK fitted just one energy-saving light bulb, enough electricity would be saved to light three million homes for a year)
27. Send your clean polythene magazine wrappers to Polyprint for recycling www.polyprint.co.uk tel: 01603 721807
28. Want to recycle tetrapacks call 0208 977 6116 or click here for stickers to send them for reprocessing
29. Hire DVDs and videos instead of buying them and join your local library to borrow books and CDs.
30. Give old glasses back to your opticians, they can be donated to people in other parts of the world.
31. Retread your car tyres instead of buying new ones www.retreaders.org.uk
32. Send your Brita water cartridges in batches of 6 to Brita Care Customer Services, Brita Water Filter Systems Ltd. Freepost, TK1917, Sunbury on Thames TW16 5BR. Or take them to Infinity Foods, North Road, Brighton.
33. Return your Neals Yard blue bottles to the shop and you’ll get money back
34. Get a compost bin – discounted bins are available from Brighton Council: (follow waste & recycling on the website then go to compost.) Or ring City Clean 01273 274674
35. Turn off your PC monitors and anything on standby in your home and office when you aren’t using them (A PC monitor left on overnight wastes enough energy to laser print 800 A4 pages)
36. Only boil the water you need (overfilling kettles wastes enough energy in a week to light a house for a day or run a TV set for 26 hours. Thirsty tea drinkers could also save 90 seconds each time they boil a kettle by putting in the required amount of water.)
37. Join Brighton Freecycle and pass on your unwanted stuff for free to someone who needs it click here
38. If you have to use paper towels in the kitchen compost put them in the compost bin
39. Recycle your old mobile phones, charities like RSPB collect these and generate income from them. Click to link to RSPB . They also collect printer cartridges.
40. Girls get a mooncup - a revolution in personal hygiene for women, and stop using tampons www.mooncup.co.uk