Recycle Now reveals new household recycling hotspots

Forgotten 'hotspots'

However, with Government targets aimed at achieving a 40% national recycling rate for household waste by 2010 and the need to help tackle climate change, we all need to consider ways to recycle more.

Consumer research undertaken to mark Recycle Week 2008 has highlighted a series of 'hotspots' in the home of 'forgotten' items of recyclable household waste. The research highlighted that:

• 62% of consumers recycle household items from their kitchen; and
• only 36% and 37% respectively remember to recycle items from their bathroom and bedroom.

The top five

Whilst nearly two thirds (62%) of consumers said that they always remembered to recycle items from their kitchen, this falls dramatically to around a third for waste in other areas of the home, such as the bathroom (36%) and bedroom (34%).

The top five items in the 'forgotten' league table of recyclables include:

• aerosol containers for deodorant, air freshener or polish, etc (62%)
• biscuit and sweet tins (53%)
• plastic shampoo and toiletry bottles (32%)
• plastic bottles of cleaning products, eg bleach, cleaner or disinfectants (31%)
• glass jars, such as those for cooking sauces (20%)

The research also showed that 59% of people focused on recycling cans, plastic drinks bottles, glass bottles, paper and card. 

Over a quarter (26%) were unaware that items such as aerosols, plastic detergent bottles, magazines and biscuit and sweet tins could often be recycled.

Simple steps that could make a big difference

This year Recycle Week is about highlighting the extra things we can easily do to recycle more and maximise the impact of our recycling efforts.

If every household in England recycled one additional item from a range of common household products such as aluminium drinks cans, steel food cans, glass cooking sauce jars, plastic milk bottles and glossy magazines every week for a year, the total amount collected for recycling could increase by more than three quarters of a million tonnes and could potentially raise the national household recycling rate by up to 3%.

Figures based on the every household in England (2.1 million) recycling one more of each of the following:

 The official amount of household waste recycled in England was 7,976,000 tonnes from a total of 25,775,000 tonnes of household waste (source: Defra). If 760,000 tonnes of extra material was collected for recycling from households in a year it would equate to an increase in the household recycling rate of around 3%.

Recycling ‘one more thing’ would also help tackle climate change by saving nearly 850,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent - the same as taking over a quarter of a million cars off the road each year, or saving the amount of energy as that used by 23,865 households for a year.