How to recycle right - There’s more to it than putting it in the bin

How much do you know about recycling?

Up till recently we thought we knew enough, but we've been put in our place. So this week we wanted to check in and see if you needed a refresher too.

Over the holidays we had a really interesting chat with Aaron’s Dad, Greg. Greg has been in and around the waste industry for over 40 years, so he knows a thing or 2 (or 2000) about inner workings.

The conversation got onto recycling and Greg mentioned a few things that really opened our eyes. The biggest thing was we weren’t recycling some household things properly. And we should have known better.

Our local council is pretty proactive in advertising its Recycle Right program, but we never paid full attention. Straight to the naughty corner for us.

What happens when you don’t recycle right?

The answer is simple. It doesn’t get recycled. Instead, your recycling is considered to be “contaminated” and it goes to straight to landfill.

The big sting in the tail is that if too much contaminated recycling ends up in the collection truck, the entire truck’s contents – yes, every last little thing in it(!!!) – goes to landfill. So everyone who had done the right thing did it to no avail.

For example only certain glass can be recycled. Mirrors, ceramics, drinking glassware and pyrex can’t be recycled due to their different melting points. If a truck has over 3% of the wrong type of glass the whole truck full of potentially recyclable waste is lost to landfill.

Other big contamination baddies of recycling are nappies, plastic bags, soft plastic, polystyrene and food. All of these have the potential to make a truck load of recycling head to landfill instead of the recycling centre. Not cool.

If you would like to learn more about your local council’s guidelines just head to their website. Otherwise Planet ark has some good general rules here.

How to recycle Woohoo Skincare packaging

All of Woohoo Skincare packaging is 100% recyclable. But there are few little things you can do so that it gets recycled right.

1. Remove the lids, pumps and sprayers from bottles, tubes and jars. Usually lids are a different type of plastic so they need to be sorted separately at the recycling centre.
2. Give them a quick rinse. Not all councils require this but some do. To save water the best time to do it is after you have done some washing up. Or let the kiddies play with them in the bath!
3. Keep them loose. No plastic bags.
4. The packing peanuts are 100% biodegradable and can be put in the waste bin, or even popped into the bath to dissolve with a little water.
5. The mailing box, paper bags and cards can all be placed in the recycling bin.

Let’s all do our part, and make sure we recycle right. Mother Earth thanks you!