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  The best way to reduce the amount of waste going into landfill
sites is to cut down on the waste you produce in the first place. If it's not created, it doesn't have to be
reused, recycled or disposed of.
Waste less food
According
to UNICEF, every 3.6 seconds one person dies of starvation, usually a child under the age of 5, yet a third of the food
bought in the UK is thrown away. That's a significant waste of food and money - about £50 a month, not
to mention the greenhouse gas emissions
associated with the production, transport, preparation and storing of it which could be avoided.
Save pounds on your shopping bill and slim
down your carbon footprint by:
1.
Planning your meals
2. Knowing what you've already got
3. Thinking about portion sizes
4. Buying seasonal
food
5. Planning your trip to the shops
6. Composting any food which can't be reused
Avoid products with
too much packaging
Many
products are over-packaged. Nearly a fifth of household waste is packaging from retail purchases. Shopping carefully
can help cut down on this waste. You can buy lots of items with far less packaging, such as loose fruit and vegetables,
and by shopping at your local butcher.
Use
your own shopping bag
This cuts the need for plastic bags, helping reduce the 10
billion plastic bags that are handed out by supermarkets each year. Every household in the UK gets through an average
of around 400 plastic carrier bags each year. Most of them go to landfill, but many others end up waving to us
from the branches of trees or slowly drowning in ponds.
Buy
a reusable bag! It'll hold more shopping and last longer.
Reduce unwanted mail
Fife
Council has estimated every household in Fife gets about 400 pieces of unwanted mail every year. This adds up to
66 million pieces of paper, weighing nearly 2000 tonnes - that's the same as 200 double deckers! Cutting down on
the amount of unwanted mail you receive can help reduce paper waste and how much you have to recycle.
The Mailing
Preference Service can remove your name (and others who may have lived at your address) from mailing lists for free.
Register here.
Registering to opt out of the Royal Mail's
Door to Door service (unaddressed items that are delivered by the Royal Mail such as flyers, circulars and supermarket leaflets). Email
optout@royalmail.com (you must include your name and full postal address to get the form).
You can also write to the sender to
tell them you don't want to receive any more mail from them. If you write to an organisation to tell them you want
to be taken off their mailing list they must, by law, stop sending you marketing materials.
Save on batteries
Many products don't need batteries, such as wind-up radios, torches and solar-powered garden lights. These
are cheaper to run and more environmentally friendly.
Compost
at home
Turn garden and household waste into
compost for use on your garden. Find out more about
home-composting here.
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