It happens to everyone: we decide to be committed and mindful about our effort to recycle, making our communities cleaner and contribute to making our planet a better place.

We pick up our rubbish, start sorting it out and then…there is no indication if something is recyclable or not!

How are we meant to know now what to do?

If you have ever found yourself in this position, you are not alone.

Despite the WRAP’s October 2022 Recycling Tracker report, found that 89% of us are committed to recycling, the same report also found that 54% of people admit that they often don’t know where to put certain items and then end up throwing things in the general rubbish bin that could have been recycled instead.

Or, placing non recyclable material in the recycling bin “because is plastic!” that is in fact not recyclable (not all plastic are, for example).

What makes recycling difficult?

I don’t know for you (and we would love to know!), but for us, there are quite a few reasons that make recycling now sure easy:

We have been speaking around our friends and people in our community and found that many people are not aware of what can and cannot be recycled, or how to properly prepare materials for recycling.

Yes, there is information on the package, but what about when there isn’t?

Many products we import from other country hare in different language and they may not clearly write how to dispose the material.

More often than not, those material then end up in the wrong bin.

We totally understand if after a long day you don’t have the mind capacity of sorting out recycling.

Some materials do take effort, such as when they are required to be separated, cleaned and disposed of in a certain way.

Some of the people we spoke to also think things will be much easier if they are given recyclable materials by society. If everything was recyclable, we wouldn’t need to make the effort (the dream!)

So why are the big names, brand, supermarkets, companies not doing this?

Well, all those point are totally understandable and we are not here to comment on the need for societal changes.

However, we can support you in making recycling easy for us, the individuals, which can make a tiny but significant (because we are many) difference.

Our tips to recycle better in less time

Print out the universal symbols for recycling material

Did you know that packaging, regardless of where they come from, often do not have universal symbols that tell us what materials they are made from?

For example, most plastic items will have a little symbol with an arrow, a number in the middle and often an acronym. For example, 1 PET(E) (Polyethylene Terephtalate) or 3 PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride).

Those material are generally either non recyclable or recyclable, so even if they come from China or the USA, if something has the symbol for PET, it will be recyclable no matter where you live.

This makes recycling so much easier!

You can use our guide (at the end of the post) for the most common type of plastic.

Have recycling bins in different location

Most of us probably have a recycling bin in the kitchen.

But what about bathroom products? They are more often than not the most confusing and a mixture of recycling and rubbish.

And the studio?

Having a pair of bins for each room we use the most of our materials in can massively increase recycling rates without having to pile everything in one place, only to separate things again.

Reduce the non-recyclable we buy

Reducing waste starts with what we buy.

When we go shopping, we often search for the products that have the most recyclable packaging.

Honey in glass instead than in plastic, for example, or fruit in paper instead of plastic bags, or pasta in a cardboard box.

This make recycling so much easier because you will know that most of the things you need to throw away are recyclable anyways!

Yes, we know that sometimes those items are more expensive but they really shouldn’t be, and as consumers we can push the market promoting and buying those products, so that as demand increases, the more they will become common things (and decrease the cost).

Make It a Ritual

It is very easy to mindlessly (because we are in a rush or distracted) just toss something in the bin without thinking about where it should go.

If this is your case, there is a very good strategy to avoid this: having a “I-will-sort-it-out-later” bin.

Toss everything in the same bin and then set a morning to revisit your trash and separate.

So that you don’t need to do it at the moment or if you just had a long day and you don’t feel like it.

It’s like cleaning the house: do we need to clean everything everyday?

Make it a habit to incorporate in your weekend housekeeping schedule.

Like this, you will probably become more focus on it and it will feel less like a burden.

Now we need you

We hope that you will take some of those tips and try them out.

Most of all, we would love to hear about your experience with recycling:

what are your struggles?

do you have any tips for us?

what do you struggle with?

what do you find easy?

By talking to each other and making recycling a communal point of discussion, we can help each other making our community, our planet, a much more cleaner and stress free place

How to recycle more, better and with less effort