Make Lisa Simpson proud: ideas for reducing waste, reusing and recycling

I wanted to write this because there are apps, sites and services out there that make recycling, reuse and donating much easier. I have a lot left to learn and improve on myself. Please share your tips with me as well. 🌲🌲🌲

• Give away food that you won’t eat using Olio. Olio is an app for giving away things (and for taking things off people’s hands, if you wish). It started off as a food sharing app and evolved. I’ve given away a box of cereal, a pack of Quorn, calendars, candle holders and nail varnish. Their newsletters are some of the best ones I’ve seen, they probably have amazing product managers.
• Give food to the homeless. I wish homelessness wasn’t such a problem in London in the first place. People really appreciate some food. When you go to a restaurant and you have leftovers, don’t feel too proud to ask for a takeaway container. Americans are great at this (but sadly probably because their portions are so bloody big in the first place). Take your leftovers and give it to someone.
• Separate your food waste. This comes down to your borough. If you live in a complex and they don’t have a communal bin, then ask your landlord to ask for one from the building management. Push them to talk to the council (I’ve been in the process of doing this for my own, I’m awaiting rodent control to be effective, for building management to change their stance on this). The council normally provides your individual bin, the food waste bags or both. At least in Tower Hamlets, the waste gets recycled and used on farms and gardens:

By recycling your food waste you will reduce the amount of food in landfill sites. Rotting food in landfill produces methane which contributes to climate change and, as the cost of sending food waste to landfill is increasing, you will help the Council and its residents save money too.

• Freeze food. I freeze are herbs (they can be used for cooking but not really as fresh herbs) and chopped up bananas. You can even freeze cow’s milk (I usually drink non-dairy, haven’t tried it yet). Recently I froze lemons and it worked out fine.
• Give away items you don’t need. Freecycle.org lets you give away and take things off people’s hands all for free. You can subscribe to a newsletter for wanted and offer ads in your area. I’ve given away a piece of luggage. I’ve received an air mattress. A friend got a good coffee machine. You can get all sorts of things like TVs, bed frames, lamps, toasters, old bikes…anything goes. I mentioned Olio earlier in the article, my guess is there’s a bigger following for non-food items on Freecycle, because that’s how it originated and because the newsletter makes it easy for people to stay across what’s posted.
• Consider changing up your washing up liquid. Ecover which is made of plant based and renewable ingredients. It’s also Leaping Bunny certified so not cruel on animals and widely available in supermarkets.
• Buy refurbished phones and recycle your old ones. This year I bought a refurbished Nexus phone from Envirofone and got a little bit of money by sending in all my old handsets to be recycled. The one I bought was in really good condition, it appeared to be brand new. You can buy different grades for different prices. It’s better to do this than buying a completely new phone. They have warranty and free delivery. All up I was really happy with the experience.
• Recycle Apple products. In some cases you can get a gift card. Years ago I also took my damaged earphones in for recycling, not sure if they accept / recycle them anymore.
• Recycle batteries. An obvious one, because the recycling bins are everywhere…

“From February 2010, new laws mean that most shops that sell batteries will have collection bins for used batteries.” Source: Tesco.

• Recycle other electronics at Currys PC World. They accept all sorts of things, they accept items that weren’t purchased from there as well. See more info
• Buy animal cruelty free. This is one where I’ve got room to improve. I’ve been buying things like shampoo, cleanser, etc. from Superdrug’s own brands because they have the Leaping Bunny logo, meaning they are animal cruelty free. This doesn’t mean the brands are vegan though (they will say ‘Vegan’ on them if they are and Superdrug has a fair range of vegan products). This is the next thing I want to change about my purchasing habits.
  Big cosmetics brands that sell in China are questionable. When you walk into a big retailer and ask if their brands test on animals they say ‘no’. However, most sell in China, where the law requires that cosmetics are tested on animals. So by buying from these brands, even though they do not test on animals elsewhere, you are supporting a company that chooses to sell in China, which enforces animal testing. I buy Original Source body washes, which are vegan and made from natural ingredients.

Source: Ethical Elephant

• Reuse paper before recycling. If you have documents that aren’t sensitive and they were printed one-sided, keep a pile of them to use them for scribbling notes before you recycle them. Or even print onto them if you use a home printer and your printing material doesn’t need to be blank on the back.
• Consider switching your loo roll to Who Gives a Crap

WE MAKE ALL OF OUR PRODUCTS WITH ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY MATERIALS, AND WE DONATE 50% OF OUR PROFITS TO HELP BUILD TOILETS FOR THOSE IN NEED. — Who Gives a Crap

Source: Who Gives a Crap

• If you want £5 off your first purchase (min £25 spend, before Dec 31 2017) visit https://www.talkable.com/x/n0yCqe.
• Reuse plastic bags. If I order from ASOS, I use the plastic bags as small bin liners or use them to carry shoes in my luggage when travelling rather than throwing them away immediately. Obviously it would be great if we didn’t have the plastic packaging in the first place. I also reuse potato and spinach leaf bags to transport my lunch to and from work. I see a lot of people who buy lunch and then throw away the plastic bag that they carried their lunch in from the shop. Even if it’s paper, it’s at least better to reuse it e.g. for carrying lunch from the shop the following day, saving getting another bag.
• Recycle your plastic bags.
  - You can recycle bags at Sainsburys or give bags back to the delivery driver https://help.sainsburys.co.uk/help/products/recycle-carrier-bags
  - Ocado gives 5p for each carrier bag recycled http://www.ocadogroup.com/news-and-media/news-centre/2015/20150930_bag_recycle_bonus.aspx
• Reject the straw. I can tell you I have not been as disciplined with this as I would like to be. I’ve started saying no to straws in bars. I’ve noticed bars are getting so much better at asking the customer whether they want a straw or not. Y tho?

“500 million straws are used and discarded every day in the United States alone. That’s 175 Billion a year filtering into landfills (environment) and littering our waterways and oceans.” Source: The Last Plastic Straw

If you love drinking from a straw, you don’t need to give it up, a metal straw could be a subsitute.

That’s it. What other tips have you got?