Reducing waste

• Love Food, Hate Waste (wasting food costs one household £480 each year)
• Food waste disposers 
• Buy unwrapped goods
• Use your Bag for Life
• Junk mail
• Stop using disposable batteries 
• Energy efficient light bulbs
• Recycle your bike
• Reduce your carbon pawprint
• Reuse nappies
• Reuse everything!
• Share
• Quiz, game and comic 
• Check our A-Z recycling list 

Love Food, Hate Waste

The Love Food Hate Waste (LFHW) campaign aims to raise awareness of the need to reduce food waste. It shows how we can all waste less food by doing simple things like getting portions right. This benefits our wallets and the environment.

• Visit Love Food, Hate Waste for tips on perfect portions, saving time and money, recipes, storage ideas and more.
• For information on local contacts, workshops and events visit Recycle Western Riverside's Love Food Hate Waste website.
• You can compost uncooked, non-meat and non-dairy kitchen scraps. The council negotiates reduced prices on composters: buy a composter.
• Food waste costs one household £480 each year. Read more in the Household Food and Drink Waste in the UK report.

Food Waste Disposers

Over 30 per cent of residual rubbish the council collects from households is food waste, which gets disposed of at an energy-from-waste incinerator. To reduce the amount of rubbish you put out for collection, along with reducing odours and pests associated with food waste, you could consider installing a food waste disposer (FWD): 

• FWDs are designed to be fitted underneath your kitchen sink and can grind all food waste.  
• Installing one enables you to separate your food waste at source; it then gets treated along with wastewater. This helps us reduce waste collection and disposal costs and to reduce waste collection vehicle movements (with associated environmental benefits). 
• It lets you get rid of food waste immediately and without leaving the kitchen.
• You avoid problems with litter caused by scavenging animals attracted to food waste in refuse awaiting collection.

Or, search Insinkerator for a local stockist by entering 'Wandsworth' in the 'search by place name' box.

Buy unwrapped goods

• Loose fruit and vegetables often have the same freshness and shelf life as packaged goods. 

Use a 'Bag for Life'

• You can buy them at the supermarket, or use a cloth bag to cut down on plastic carrier bags.
• Don't push it to the back of a cupboard - you're better off using a plastic bag than storing a cotton bag you never use. The environmental impact of growing, processing and transporting cotton is far greater than the footprint of one plastic carrier bag.

Junk Mail

In the UK producers of addressed and unaddressed junk mail use 550,000 tonnes of paper and 16.5 billion litres of water every year. This equates to over 9 million trees. The volume of junk mail produced is decreasing every year. You can reduce the amount you receive by some of the methods below.

• Get a 'No Junk Mail' sticker for your door from your local library or by contacting wasteservices@wandsworth.gov.uk or 020 8871 8558.
• Unwanted direct mail: register with the Mailing Preference Service (MPS) online or phone 0845 703 4599.
• There is also a fax and telephone preference service (FPS and TPS), and even a Baby MPS which puts a stop to mailings from baby-related companies.
• Unaddressed mail from Royal Mail: telephone 08457 740740 or email your address to optout@royalmail.com.
• The Junk Buster claims to sign you up to the MPS, Royal Mail's Door-to-Door Opt-Out and Your Choice Preference Scheme for Unaddressed Mail simultaneously. Visit StopJunkMail.org.uk.
• Remember that any junk mail you do receive can be recycled. 

MPS users in Wandsworth by month

MPS users in 2010 by postal area

Stop using disposable batteries

Try to avoid using products that require them, or buy rechargeable batteries. If you can use the main electricity supply, do so. Batteries are hazardous waste and shouldn't be thrown in the rubbish bin because the chemicals leak out and cause damage in the environment.

Dispose of household and car batteries at the Household Waste and Recycling Centre at Smugglers Way, SW18.

Recycle batteries

Household batteries - D, C, AA, AAA, 9V, button cell and rechargeable batteries can be recycled at all libraries in the borough and at:

• Concourse reception at Wandsworth Town Hall
• Millennium Arena, Battersea Park
• Tooting Leisure Centre, Greaves Place
• Putney Leisure Centre, Dryburgh Road
• Wandle Recreation Centre, Mapleton Crescent
• Balham Leisure Centre, Elmfield Road  

Energy efficient light bulbs

• Saves resources
• Saves money
• Lasts ten times longer than standard bulbs
• Find out more at www.saveenergy.co.uk

ReCYCLE your bike

• Unwanted or old bicycles can be taken to the Youth Offending Team bike recycling project every Thursday, 5-8pm at the Training Centre, Alma Road, SW18.
• The bikes are refurbished and given to victims of crime. Phone Rebecca Lynn (020) 8871 5571 or email rlynn@wandsworth.gov.uk

Reduce your carbon paw print

Twenty-nine thousand wheelie bins of plastic-bagged dog waste go to landfill each week. Products like the Good Boy Dog Loo can be installed easily even in small gardens to break down the solid waste and turn it into liquid which is safely released into the ground.

The process is harmless to the environment and safe for plants and pets. Once installed add a capful of Bioactivator and half a litre of water each week. 

Reusable nappies

Go to our nappies webpages for full details on reusable nappies. 

Reuse what you can!

Reusing things is even better for the environment than recycling, as recycling involves breaking things down to their raw materials and making new products, a process with its own environmental impacts. 

Before you throw something away, consider whether someone else might want to reuse it.  And before you buy something new, consider whether you might be able to reuse something someone else no longer wants. 

A new service to collect items suitable for reuse, refurbishment and/or repair started January 2012.  Potentially suitable items include most unwanted white goods and funiture.  To request this service, please call the Reuse Hotline: 020 3142 8506.  Please note that there is a charge for this service which matches our standard bulky waste collection charge.

Reuse containers. Ice cream tubs, jam jars or other containers can be used as sandwich boxes or food containers.

For links to websites you can use to give unwanted items away or find things you want that are being given away by others, please visit our useful links page.

Share

Ecomodo is one of a handful of sharing websites which allow you to share various items - from garden tools to fancy dress - within a specified distance from your home.

No exact addresses are shown; instead members can search for an item or even for someone with a special skill in their local area. You can choose to charge for your item or service by the day or even hour, or lend for free and just request a deposit.   

Waste reduction quiz, game and comic

How good are you  at reducing waste?  Take the waste reduction quiz and find out! 

Help the "Chuck-it" family reduce their waste playing the Operation Empty Garbage Bin game.

Read the Attack of the Killer Muckwads comic strip.

A-Z recycling list

Check our A-Z recycling list to find out how to recycle a range of other items or, if they can't be recycled, the best way to dispose of them.