Over time, Valentine’s Day has become a very consumer-driven celebration, with greetings cards, chocolates and cut flowers being common purchases for loved ones. However, there are many other ways to celebrate and profess your love to your partner or prospective partner, which are kinder to the environment, as well as the bank balance. Why not try one of the ideas below this Valentine’s Day?
Author: Lucy Ravenhall
Lucy is a long-standing editor of the Forge Recycling blog and loves writing about her environmental passions.
What is Leeds BID?
You may have heard mention of LeedsBID in conversation, or perhaps you have seen the LeedsBID Welcome Ambassadors, Street Rangers or Evening Ambassadors out and about in the city centre. Either way, you are probably wondering exactly what LeedsBID is, who runs the organisation, and what exactly it does.
The UK’s food & drink industry has halved its carbon emissions
The Food and Drink Federation’s (FDF) latest report has shown that UK-based food and drink companies had successfully reduced their carbon emissions in 2016 by 51 per cent since 1990.
Continue reading The UK’s food & drink industry has halved its carbon emissions
Why your business should recycle its food waste
Food waste has been big news over the past couple of years, and with good reason: approximately one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year gets wasted. Closer to home, in the UK, 18 million tonnes of food ends up in landfill annually. So why should your business recycle its food waste instead of sending it to landfill? This article outlines the main reasons. If you can, aim to reduce your food waste, but for the waste that can’t be helped, consider the below points.
Continue reading Why your business should recycle its food waste
How to cut Christmas food waste
When you are hosting family and friends on Christmas Day, the temptation can be high to purchase too much food, feeling that more is better than less on a day when you can’t just pop to the shops if you have forgotten something. However, doing this will leave you with lots of leftovers, both cooked and uncooked, which can end up in the bin.
So how can you avoid food waste over the Christmas period? Follow the tips below.
Household recycling tips for Christmas
Christmas is a wonderful but often wasteful time of year. It can be easy to forget about the importance of recycling when you’re so busy seeing friends and family, cooking, partying, and having so much fun. However, it’s actually more important than ever to consider your waste, as there’s more of it being produced!
So, how can you make the most of recycling opportunities this Christmas?
Outdoor gym created from recycled knives
An outdoor gym has recently opened in Tower Hamlets, east London, which has been constructed almost entirely from the metal of confiscated and surrendered knives and blades.
How to recycle your shoes
According to a study conducted by Oxfam, every person in the UK owns seven pairs of unused shoes, on average. In fact, there are so many unworn or unused shoes in British households that, put heel to toe in a line, they’d stretch all the way round the world. So, what happens to these shoes when we do decide to throw them out? Sadly, most still find their way to landfill – even those which have plenty of life left in them. These shoes then take a very long time to decompose. Running shoes, for example, can take 1,000 years to break down on landfill.
How can you avoid this and recycle your shoes instead? Find out below.
How to upcycle car tyres
Due to its resilient nature, rubber is the perfect material for upcycling projects, and vehicle tyres can therefore be easily reused once they have become unroadworthy. Repurposing vehicle tyres is a nice alternative to sending them to landfill – an unfortunate ending for many tyres worldwide. When tyres are recycled, they are often shredded and used for producing playground surfaces, road embankments and synthetic turf. Why not reuse them before that stage and lengthen their life even more? Give some of these upcycling ideas a go.
Wardrobe recycling tips: clothes, bedding & accessories
Many wardrobes are fit to burst, and some of us put off having a sort-out as we’re not quite sure what to do with each item we’d like to get rid of. Instead of putting it off any longer, or resorting to chucking it all in the household bin, take a look at our wardrobe recycling guide below and do the best you can by your old clothes and accessories.
Continue reading Wardrobe recycling tips: clothes, bedding & accessories