Sitting after the most preferred option of ‘Avoid’ on the Waste Management Hierarchy is ‘Reuse’. ‘Reuse’ can be defined as using items more than once and finding new ways to reuse items you would otherwise throw away.
Below are 10 tips on how you can reuse items at home and at work:
1. Repair items (clothes, furniture, electronics etc). If you are not that handy yourself, you could enlist in help at a Repair café or take your item into a specialist for repair (which will probably be the fraction of the cost rather than replacing outright)
2. At work or with a group of friends set up a system to swap, share or borrow items that are infrequently used or have been used as a one off – for examples, DVDs, books, tools or furniture.
3. Are you moving house or in need of some boxes for storage? Rather than going out and buying a whole lot of boxes (that you will later discard in the recycling), visit your local supermarket and see what they might be able to offer you – thus reusing their cartons and saving you a little bit of cash.
4. Reuse glass jars for kitchen storage or preserves and take away containers to store left overs.
5. Old sheets and towels are great to use as cleaning rags.
6. Buy second hand – sites like Gumtree and e-bay are great for picking up bargains. Also check out your local trash and treasure markets.
7. Donate your old clothes, books and working electrical equipment to charity so somebody else can reuse them.
8. Reuse stationery items at work (folders, paper clips, rubber bands, packaging etc) and use waste paper for scrap/note paper.
9. For food leftovers you don’t know what to do with – gain some inspiration from the Love Your Leftovers app.
10. Think outside the square! Before you dispose of something (whether it be to recycle or off to landfill) ask yourself if it could be re-purposed. For creative inspiration check out sites like Pinterest.
For tips on how you can avoid or reduce waste to begin with click here. Or to find out more about business waste reduction please contact us.