Did you know you can recycle these items? By recycling them some also help to support charities.
Your kerbside collection service can recycle lots of the items found in the home. However, there are ways to recycle some items that aren’t collected.
Make up containers
Now you can save your empty mascara tubes from the bin!
Make-up giant Maybelline has teamed up with TerraCycle so that you can recycle its products in stores like Boots, SuperDrug, Sainbury’s and Tesco in East Sussex.
Find out more and check if your local store is collecting at Recycle your make-up with Maybelline.
Ink cartridges
Many charities have partnered up with various schemes to collect your empty ink cartridges. Simply send in your used ink cartridges and a donation is made to the charity after they have been successfully recycled.
You can find out more at the links below, and we’d recommend having a look on the website of your charity of choice to check if it is taking old cartridges.
Other ways to donate to us – British Heart Foundation
Printer cartridges – Against Breast Cancer
Raise Money for Charities With Your Empty Cartridges
Stamps
Your used stamps can be a first-class way to help your favourite charities. Many charities are asking for used, new, foreign, and other types of stamps to be sent to them. The stamps are then sold by weight and the money goes back into the charity.
This article from Country Living has more information and a list of charities that collect stamps: Charities Accepting Used Postage Stamps as Donations.
Bras
Bras can be recycled in clothing and textile containers at household waste recycling centres. But did you know they can also be sent to Against Breast Cancer, where the charity receives around £1 for every kilo of bras recycled?
The scheme helps fund breast cancer research and also supports small businesses in Africa.
Find out more at: Bra Recycling – Against Breast Cancer
Batteries
You may already know that batteries can be recycled, but did you know that they can’t go in your recycling or waste bin at home?
People in the UK throw away 22,000 tonnes of batteries a year but only around a third are recycled properly.
Batteries are a big fire risk. In 2019 there were six fires at depots in Sussex because of batteries. Waste fires caused by lithium-ion batteries cause £158m of damage every year.
Between April 2019 and March 2020, lithium-ion batteries alone were thought to be responsible for more than 250 fires at waste sites across the UK – around 40% of all fires.
In 2020, one incident saw a mobile phone battery ignite in a collection vehicle in Wealden. This caused service disruption and crew members were lucky to escape without injury. In April 2021 there were two serious fires within hours of each at Waste sites in East Sussex.
In short, while they can be recycled, they must never be placed into your home waste or recycling bin where they could become ‘zombie batteries’
If you live in areas covered by Wealden, Rother or Hastings councils, you can recycle your batteries by placing them into a separate carrier bag and placing them on top of you bin on collection days.
There are also lots of supermarkets that you can drop them off to. Use Recycle Now’s local recycling map to find somewhere near you.
Your local household waste recycling site will also take them.
TerraCycle
You can check out the TerraCycle website which shows drop-off points that collect and recycle materials that are not typically collected at the kerbside. The site can help you recycle everything from crisp packets, pet food pouches, toothbrush heads to pens and coffee pods.
Reduce, reuse, recycle and refill
The best thing for the environment is to reduce the amount that we buy and use in the first place.
Check out our top tips for how to reduce, reuse and recycle items, especially if you are planning a spring clear out.
There may be a local refill shop near you that you can visit to refill on household items and food. We have listed some local zero waste stores in our article: How to ban single-use plastics from your home (scroll down for zero waste stores in East Sussex).
If you can’t reduce or reuse, then recycle. Check out our ultimate guide to recycling to double check that you’re recycling everything you can from your home.
