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WRAP, or the Waste and Resources Action Programme, is in it’s seventeenth year of celebrating recycling through Recycle Week, an event which has encouraged the general population to increase their commitment to recycling.

Throughout lockdown, there seemed to be a significant realisation of how nice our environments had become with the reduction of vehicles on the road, and litter in the streets and parks, and as a result you may have been thinking more about how to keep it that way! However, due to necessities of safety, some of our previous efforts to be more environmentally friendly (such as bringing your keep cup to the coffee shop) have taken a hit. Combined with lockdown fatigue, and any number of other challenges we’ve faced as households and individuals, recycling may not have been at the top of your agenda.

Nevertheless, because so many Brits have done their best to keep the momentum going, WRAP have dedicated this year’s theme to thanking both key workers and citizens for the sacrifices they have made over this year to continue to recycle and create positive change in the world. This especially goes out to all our recycling and waste key workers who continued to work collecting our recycling and waste despite the circumstances.

It’s a big thank you from Team Q+A too! It’s well and good to provide recyclable packaging for our products and manage waste and recycling at our office and warehouse locations, but you’ve been amazing following through with recycling your empties so that they can have a new life, rather than going to landfill. We all make a rather good team, if I do say so myself! Excitingly, according to WRAP, 93% of UK households say they believe that ‘everyone has a responsibility to help towards cleaning up the environment’. It’s a small act to perform, but every little bit counts!  

So, to answering the actual question! If you haven’t already, pop over to Instagram and give #recycleweek2020, #togetherwerecycle and @recyclenow_uk a follow. The account @londonrecyclesukis also a great resource! There are some interesting tips on how others are tackling the challenge of waste, and encouragement to do your best! Recycle Now (one of WRAP’s projects) is a fantastic resource to educate yourself on what can be recycled from your home, including a breakdown by room, and how the recycling process actually works, as well as how to decipher the various recycling symbols. They even have a handy local recycling collection centre search function, so you know exactly where to drop off recyclables that might not be appropriate for your regular domestic recycling bins! Often the key to change is good education.

Of course, if we follow our essential R’s; reduce, reuse and recycle, there are always other ways to cut down on waste without throwing anything out! In fact, we’ve got some ways to reuse your 30ml dropper bottles, and 100ml toner bottle (after cleaning them of course)…  

Decant larger products for on-the-go use. Whilst travel isn’t possible for many of us, save your toner bottle for shampoo, conditioner or moisturiser on your next trip! Our dropper bottles can be used to decant fragrances, contact solution, or split your new bottle in two so you can have one at home and one in your bag. Have you ever used a product with single-use packaging, like a sheet mask, which provided too much excess product to use in one go? Just squeeze it into a bottle and save it for another day!

Storage. Carefully remove the glass dropper for a glass bottle perfect for storing bobby pins, earring backers, and other easily lost things.

Arts, crafts and decorations. For those painters or artists, droppers make creating and storing new shades of paints and inks easy! Or fill with water to for use with watercolours. Some people with large collections of glass bottles have been turning them into fairy lights, our amber bottles would be perfect for a warm glow, just make sure your hot glue gun skills are up to scratch! Other ideas include turning them into small fragrance diffusers using reeds or bamboo sticks, tiny vases for tiny plants and single flowers, or a space to propagate plants for replanting. 

Looking for some inspiration for reusing or reducing your waste? @recycleandplay share ideas for recycled material as crafts for kids, @recycleyourelectricals_ is focused on recycling electronic materials, @upcyclethat gives inspiration for upcycling projects, and there are plenty of brands who are using recycled materials to give sustainability to a previously single-use industry, such as @recycledcandles.

So, to summarise, thank you for all your recycling efforts this year! Let’s continue to commit to sustainable habits and spread the excitement of reducing, reusing, and recycling to anyone not yet on board. And please, let us know your top tips for reusing and recycling at home, we’d love to hear them 😊

Until next time,

Amy @ Team Q+A