As one of the biggest environmental crises of recent times, plastic waste is a responsibility that is ours to share. Projections show us that plastic waste in oceans will outweigh fish by nearly three times by 2050, which is a terrifying figure.

Far from being an issue to be dealt with by governments and companies alone, individuals can do their bit too. The important thing is knowing how you can make a difference with simple daily habits.

Paper and plastic

Every country and most areas within them have slightly different systems for recycling household waste, and the first step is finding out what the rules are for your local area.

Generally, you’ll need to separate your paper from your plastic and food waste by setting up individual containers to hold those types of waste products before popping them into the correct bins. That way you can easily keep on top of things.

And what happens if you fail to recycle properly? That includes forgetting to rinse any residue from your containers before popping them in your bin or stacking different waste items such as a plastic bottle inside a cardboard box. These kinds of actions essentially mean that your efforts can be wasted at worst, or cause issues during the recycling process due to contaminating the raw material.

Waste management businesses need to separate items into the right categories to clean, squash and process them, and there is even such a thing as hand sorters. Let’s just say that wading through dangerous or particularly mucky items is no fun for them.

Pay attention to plastic types

One of the big ways we can help specifically with plastic waste is to look at the type of plastic containers being used. Companies with an eye on sustainability are looking to different kinds of plastics which are kinder to the environment.

For our part, we use PET because it’s 100% recyclable. Note, not all plastics are, and it’s vital that we empower this recyclable, circular process to save our oceans and our planet from plastic waste.

Our PET bottles are specifically made with BioPET, where 30% of the plastic comes from sugar cane. This innovative form of packaging and variations of it are used across things such as bottles and biodegradable shopping bags. This means that not only are they relying on a percentage of biodegradable materials, but they are also fully recyclable and can be popped into your plastic waste bin.

Recycle without removing labels

Yes, you need to consider material types, putting things in the proper bins, and cleaning items before binning them. But have you thought about labels?

Labels are often an overlooked part of the recycling process, but they are made from certain materials and often they can’t be recycled along with the container. One way around this is to remove the labels before placing your used product in the waste system. Another is to look at the type of label used.

Just like your bioPET and other bioplastics, there are types of labels that can easily and sustainably be recycled. Because we care about the planet, we’ve done plenty of research into this part of the packaging, and we’ve chosen to use CleanFlake labelling. Made to be used with PET and food safety compliant, they look and work just like your average packaging label, but they don’t cause issues at the recycling stage.

Round-up

We take our part in the battle against plastic waste seriously, and we know that by making the right decisions here, we can help to streamline the recycling process at a household level.

From a consumer point of view, knowing how to recycle your waste, how to segregate it, and what pitfalls to watch out for are important. From ours, we know that we’ve made it as simple as possible, so you can rinse, place it in the right bin, and do your bit in a moment.