How far would you go to recycle your waste? Making recycling easier has been a huge help in getting more people to recycle. If you have to travel to a recycling centre you might not bother, but if the recycling bin is next to the normal waste bin you are much more likely to use it.
Whenever I move house it takes a few months to get used to the new recycling system. Whether it's recycling new things (like plastic trays in Durham) or not recycling something I always have before (tetra-packs). Once I've figured it all out I start trying to buy products that only fit what I can recycle. So now I buy orange juice in plastic or glass bottles rather than tetra-packs so that I reduce waste and increase recycling. Some things are very hard to avoid, plastic trays for example. We can't recycle them in our area but there aren't many alternatives when buying meat and other products.
Occasionally I can't stand throwing some things away that I know can be recycled elsewhere and I'm not the only one. For example in my first term at university I saved up plastic water bottles (eventually I managed to stop the dinner staff putting bottles in my lunch) and packed them all into my rucksack to take home, where plastic could be recycled. More recently I have taken tetra-packs to my parents who can recycle it too.
This week I've been the recipient of some recycling for the first time. When visiting family arrived they had brought recycling from their holiday, but also from other family members they had visited in different areas. So the dog food tins, plastic bottles and cardboard was recycled here and then the plastic trays will continue south to be recycled somewhere else. This all works, but only if you're making the journey anyway.
How far have you gone for recycling or do you have other ways of dealing with unwanted rubbish?
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