Reducing Your Waste

The average Haringey resident produces over a third of a tonne of waste each year. To make matters worse, the amount of waste that each person produces is continuing to rise, meaning that we are using and throwing away more and more materials.

Recycling helps to save some of the materials that are thrown away. However, manufacturing products and transporting them to where they are sold uses a significant amount of energy, as does collecting them from residents and recycling them into new products.

It is better to reduce the amount of waste we produce in the first place, either by buying fewer products or reusing any items we no longer need.

This page offers some simple advice on how you can reduce your waste. Each of these actions will help to deal with the growing amount of rubbish produced in Haringey, and you may find that you save money too.

Reduce your waste before it catches up with you!

Buy a Bag for Life. Plastic carrier bags are very wasteful, as they are normally used just once before being thrown away. Stronger reusable bags can be bought from many supermarkets for as little as 10p, and can be used again and again for your shopping. When they finally wear out the supermarkets will replace them for free. Cloth and jute bags are also available from many charities, shops and websites.

Choose food with less packaging. Some food items come wrapped up in a lot of packaging, and these materials are often not able to be recycled. When you are out shopping, try to choose those items that use less packaging, and steer away from unnecessary 'gift' packaging.

Buy in bulk. Many food items can be bought in small or large packets. If you choose the larger ones, you will end up using less packaging than buying two of the smaller ones.

Protect your letterbox. There are ways that you can cut down on the amount of unwanted mail you receive through your front door.

• To discourage anyone posting take-away menus, put a No Junk Mail sticker on your letterbox. You can request a free sticker from Haringey Council by sending an email to environmental.resources@haringey.gov.uk
• You can also sign up to the Mailing Preference Service (see the external links section below) to reduce the amount of letters and brochures companies send you without you asking them to. There are also preference services for fax and telephone, further information on which can be found in the Preference Services Overview document in the attached files section below.

Real nappies reduce waste. Reusable cloth nappies greatly reduce the amount of waste that families with babies and toddlers throw away, and can save parents money too. Vouchers are available for parents wishing to use real nappies, so please visit the reusable nappies page for more information.

Donate or share. There will often be someone who could make use of an item that you no longer need. Share unwanted items like clothes, books, CDs, DVDs and videos with friends and family, or donate them to a charity shop. Old cartons, egg boxes, yoghurt pots and foil can make great art supplies for children, and many libraries will be glad of any books you no longer want. Alternatively you can give items away for free by advertising them on websites like Don't Dump That and Freecycle - see the external links section at the bottom of the page.

Leftovers for lunch. If you have any leftovers from your dinner, why not put them into a tupperware box and take them into work the next day to have for lunch? Not only will this stop the food from being wasted, but you also won't have to throw away any packaging from a sandwich or takeaway meal that you would end up buying at lunchtime. This will save you money too!

Carry a water bottle. Rather than always having to buy an expensive bottle of water when you get thirsty, why not carry a bottle around with you that you can fill up from the tap? This will reduce your waste and save you money.

Compost at home. Green garden waste, fruit and vegetable peelings, teabags, egg shells and shredded paper are just some of the materials that can be composted at home. This reduces the amount of waste that you need put out to get collected, and will supply you with a good quality compost to use on your garden. Discounts are available on home composting bins through the national Recycle Now campaign - please see the home composting page for more information.

Buy only what you need. When you are thinking of buying something new, ask yourself if you really genuinely need it. The best way to reduce waste is not to produce it in the first place, so try to resist the urge to go shopping when you don't actually need anything.

Attached Files

Filename	Filetype	Size
preference services overview.pdf	PDF	2265K
PDF documents require Adobe Acrobat reader. Please click here to download.

Useful External Links

The following links are not part of the Haringey Council website. Please read our legal disclaimer before using these links

• Mailing Preference Service
• Don't Dump That
• Freecycle

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