The best way to manage waste is not to produce it in the first place. Look into your shopping habits, try buying loose fruit and vegetables rather than plastic wrapped or bagged, make a meal plan so you reduce throwing wasted food, upcycle your clothes where possible. Avoid buying plastic shopping bags and single use plastic. Use your reusable shopping bags, coffee mugs or even containers for take away food.
Change waste into resource! Reuse is about valuing our stuff, by using and reusing it for as long and as often as possible. This avoids the need to extract raw materials, manufacture new stuff, and avoids waste thereby cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions.
Repair and Revive – Fix or clean up what you already have. Try www.repairmystuff.ie for local repair help.
Buy pre-loved or upcycled – Find pre-loved at your local charity shop, social enterprise, vintage shop or market.
Borrow, Rent or share it – Borrow or rent gear you won’t use often. Alternatively, try sharing equipment you don’t use with friends, family or community.
BYO B&C – Bring your own reusable coffee cup/ water bottle to the office or sports. Bring your own bags & containers when shopping.
Please follow Mulleadys List of Accepted Items for Blue-Recycling Bin, where you can see what can and cannot be put into your Blue-Recycling Bin. Keep a space in your cupboard so that you can recycle as you are cooking or cleaning. It will make it easier for you to put the recyclables in their proper place. Don’t forget to recycle bathroom waste such as shampoo bottles or toilet rolls. What can I recycle?
WASH – Scrape out any food remains/pour away excess liquid. Rinse the container (use your washing-up water). Don’t put recyclate in the dishwasher – no need to waste resources to achieve an unnecessary level of cleanliness!
SQUASH – Crush metal cans. Squeeze plastic bottles flat to expel as much air as possible. Flatten cardboard boxes, such as egg boxes, tea boxes etc.
These steps help prevent contamination and reduce the volume of recyclate, making collections more energy efficient.
Make sure you do not stack plastic or metal into the cardboard box and the other way around. All recyclables should be going loose into your recycling bin so it can be easily detected by sorting machines and staff. DO NOT BAG RECYCLABLES.
Segregate food waste and use it for home compost or use food waste bin. Follow below link for more tips how to reduce food waste and use your brown bin.
Visit mywaste.ie for futher information.