With the world having limited space to offer up for landfill sites, recycling and composting have become more and more popular in the modern day. Why? Because they reduce the volume of rubbish that need disposal in these landfill sites, and save you money by producing rich soil that you can use on your own garden.

What is composting?

Composting is a natural process of recycling decomposed organic material, turning it into rich soil (compost) which can be particularly handy for any keen gardeners out there.

Not only can we do it ourselves from the comfort of our back garden, but this way, the composting process will be accelerated, bringing you nutrient-rich soil for your garden and your plants in far quicker time.

What should you compost?

So, what do you put in your compost pile to make compost? What is this ‘organic material’ we speak of? Well, it’s all that garden waste like leaves, weeds, and grass clippings, as well as certain scraps and waste from your kitchen too. Fruit and vegetable scraps and peel, coffee grounds, teabags and egg shells can all be composted, for example.

With that long list, it may come as no surprise to learn that garden and food waste make up a significant amount of what we throw away as a population. This is why it doesn’t make sense for us to use up resources to get rid of it all, when we simply don’t need to!

What is surprising is just how useful these old scraps and leftovers can be to you, as well as the environment. If you get your compost right – by putting in the good stuff and avoiding the bad – you can get a finished product of dark-brown crumbly soil that your garden and plants will thrive off.

How to make your own compost heap

Have we convinced you? We thought we might, so we’re going to go through how you can make your own compost heap to help you on your way to saving the environment bit by bit!

• First up, buy a compost bin or build one yourself. Try and make sure that your compost pile will be enclosed to keep away any critters and hold the heat and moisture in, as well as look neat and tidy in your garden too.
• If you live in a city or urban area, it will be necessary for you to have secure flooring and covering beneath it and on top of it, as well as no wide openings.
• Set up your bin in shaded area that is convenient to you, and somewhere with good drainage to improve the quality of the compost.
• For the best quality finished product, you want to make sure your compost has a good balance of ‘green’ and ‘brown’ materials, and give it a good airing. One top tip to keep your compost healthy is to layer it, and add scrunched up pieces of cardboard to create air pockets.
• You’ll know your compost is ready when you have a dark-brown, almost black, soil that has a sponge-like texture. This shows it is rich in nutrients, and ready to spread over your flowerbeds!

Whether you’re dealing with children’s toys, furniture, living room décor, or all of the above, the things you want to get rid of can really add up, and whilst some of it could be reused, you’re likely to discover a lot of unnecessary clutter too.

There’s no point in moving those kinds of things from your old home to your new home, which is why moving home is the perfect time to have a huge clear out. Not to mention the waste that moving home leaves; all those boxes, all that newspaper.

So, how can you tackle that waste when moving home? We’ve put together some of our top tips.

Don’t pack things you haven’t used for years

This can be seen as an obvious start, however, you’d be surprised at how many of you can’t bring themselves to throw away things – even if they haven’t used them (or seen them!) for years. There’s always some kind of excuse, isn’t there?

“Oh, you never know when this will come in handy”. “Oh, this might be useful for so and so when they move house next year”. “Oh, what are a few more years of putting it in the attic going to do?”

Stop! This is unnecessary packing and space that’s filling up the removal van and your new home. Do something useful with them like taking it them to a charity shop or selling them. Or if you know that they’re unlikely to be bought or usable, get rid of them – in the most efficient way possible.

Hire a skip

As we’ve just mentioned, you are bound to find possessions that aren’t suited to finding a new home. But don’t just dump it and expect your usual bin men to collect it – chucking your old sofa on the street outside your house isn’t going to get you anywhere.

This is where we come in. At A Plus Skips, we have a range of mini skips to hire which are perfect for individuals and families that are moving house and find a lot of needless junk that they can’t do anything with.

We take care of the waste for you, making sure all that can be recycled is recycled in our mission to reduce landfill sites, as well as the complexities and the costs that come with it. As one of the cheapest skip hires in Dublin, we’re good for your wallet as well as the environment!

Don’t buy new removal boxes

So many boxes are thrown away every day which is not only a huge waste of money, but also a huge waste of materials. If you know of anyone that has recently moved house, they’ll be sure to have some boxes left over for you to use or borrow. If not, ask around at your local supermarkets if they have any boxes that they’re looking to throw out any.

The same goes for you once you have moved out and you’re done with the boxes. Pass them on! Don’t just throw them out. It’s environmentally-friendly and helping out a neighbour, whereas there’s little to gain from chucking them in the bin.

Use suitcases

You could even use your suitcases and drawers to pack up your things and take them to your new home. You don’t need to empty out your chest of drawers into a cardboard box. You can just make the most of the space in the furniture, those suitcases and the bags you’ll be packing anyway. It’s killing two birds with one stone.

Reuse newspaper

When the months and weeks are coming closer to your big move day, start thinking about keeping hold of the newspapers and magazines you’ve already read. This will save you on buying out your local newsagents’ selection of papers in a mad panic when you start packing up your stuff.

Newspaper is the cheap and practical solution for wrapping china and ornaments, amongst other more delicate things that you own and want to protect on the journey to your new home. Plus, once you’ve made the most of your newspaper, it’s easy to dispose of efficiently.

Simply recycle it by using your local collection, or even use it in other ways. One way to get that log burner going in your new home perhaps?

Reuse textiles

If you’re not an avid reader of newspapers or magazines, there are plenty other resources that you can use to protect your plates, mugs, and precious ornaments. That bedding you’re packing? That could make a great protector for those delicate items too. Same with all the towels and other bed sheets you’ve got.

This can work as a replacement for newspaper packaging, or accompany it nicely. It will save you a lot of money on bubble wrap, and will significantly reduce the amount of waste you have to deal with after the big move.

Looking around, you are guaranteed to spot something – in fact, a lot of things – that are run by batteries. We’re not just talking about the cylindrical types you put in your remote control, but the numerous others too.

Why you should recycle

Rechargeable and disposable batteries are made from important resources and chemicals, including lead, nickel, zinc and mercury, and it’s because of these materials that all batteries should be recycled.

By putting your used batteries in the rubbish bin, they will be sent to where all the other rubbish is taken: incinerators or landfill sites. However, batteries aren’t like every other piece of rubbish because of what they are made of.

Once the battery case corrodes, there is a risk that the battery’s chemicals will seep into the ground or be released into the air which will add to water, air and soil pollution.

Getting rid of your batteries

When you recycle your batteries efficiently, you are allowing them to be taken apart so its materials can be recovered and re-used to create new batteries or something else.

Recycling and re-using are the most environmentally-friendly way to fuel our earth’s needs – we save so much energy by doing so, as well as so many natural resources. Not to mention the fact that recycling properly will save a lot of space in landfill sites, reducing the need for more land to be taken up with them.

This means that by simply recycling your batteries, you can make a real difference. By keeping unwanted batteries aside for your household collection service or by taking them to a collection point, you are helping to reduce waste and pollution around us.

You can make the difference, and it doesn’t take much!

By the time many of us get round to actually recycling our old phones, we assume they’re obsolete and worthless, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Afterall, if your old phones had no value, then why do you think there’s such a high demand from charities and businesses?

Refurbishment

The truth is that most old mobile phones can easily be refurbished. It’s estimated that only 3-4% of old handsets are beyond economic repair (BER).

When your old phone arrives at a recycling centre, it first goes through a set of rigorous tests, starting by checking its IMEI number in the Central Equipment Identity Centre (CEIR) database to check it hasn’t been stolen or lost.

After that, the components of your old phone such as the keypad are tested. Usually phones are then transported to specialist repair centres.

Recycling BER phones

Even if your handset is Beyond Economic Repair, it’s still valuable. All handsets contain various quantities of metals, including platinum, copper, gold and silver that often end up as jewellery. Your old phone’s batteries contain nickel, which is regularly combined with stainless steel to make saucepans.

The plastic of your old phone is then melted down to create other products, including plastic sheeting and traffic cones. There are companies in the UK that carry out this work, as well as specialists in Sweden and France that operate a zero landfill policy, ensuring that all the parts of your old phone is put to good use.

New horizons

Out of all the phones that can be reused, only 20% stay in the UK. If you’ve ever received a replacement phone through your insurance policy after losing or having your phone stolen, the chances are you received a refurbished phone.

The other 80% of phones get sent to emerging markets all over the globe to places like Asia, Africa and Russia, where landlines are few in number.

Not everyone agrees with refurbishment

Despite all the positive consequences from refurbishing and recycling phones, some people in the phone industry aren’t happy. Sony Ericsson’s Head of Sustainability maintains that the company isn’t in the business of refurbishment. He argues that there are several unresolved issues in the area as the refurbishment industry has continued to grow over the last decade:

• Some companies don’t take the appropriate care in relation to the risks of batteries and chargers.
• A poor user experience occurs if a company decides to use non-approved parts, brands or illegal software as part of the refurbishment.

The green benefits of recycling and refurbishment

Phone companies such as Motorola and Nokia provide their customers with take-back services everywhere in the world, including South America and Africa.

Even though Greenpeace has ranked Nokia as the greenest global electronic company, it still only recycles between 3 and 5% of its handsets. Presumably the others are either in drawers or landfill sites, leaking toxic waste into the ground.

Whilst it’s great that repair and refurbishment extend the lives of phones and see them being used three or four times by various people around the world, the next step is creating a global take-back process to avoid phones ultimately ending up on the landfill.

Where should we go next?

As consumers, it’s really up to us to ensure the recycling figure is increased. One way to do this and make some money at the same time is to keep your oldest handset as your spare and sell on your newer ‘spare phones’ for a decent amount, or donate them to charity.

Since The Recycling Factory launched in 2005, for example, they’ve managed to raise over £232,940 for the RSPCA.

There are dozens of charities that benefit from the donation of old phones, so you’re sure to find one that you want to support in such a way. You could even start your own appeal for a charity through collecting old phones and empty printer cartridges.

The unthinkable option

However, there is one alternative that offers the greenest path, but will be unthinkable to many of us, and that’s to keep our phone for longer than the standard 12 months. Contrary to popular belief, most phones work fine when they’re over a year old, and only really need replacing when they stop working. Items such as jeans and leather jackets only increase in character with age, and there’s no reason phones shouldn’t do the same.

• Real Christmas trees can easily be recycled and will be collected by Dublin City Council for free between 3rd January and 22nd January. To see where you can drop off your Christmas tree, check the Dublin City Council webpage.

• Food waste is a major issue around Christmas. One way you can minimise food waste, and wasting your money, is to plan your meals ahead, so you only buy what you need. There are plenty of online resources to help you make the most of any leftovers you may still acquire.

• Christmas presents all come with extra and sometime unnecessary packaging. Cardboard boxes and card packaging can go in your recycling bin as usual, and you can leave extra bulky cardboard in a bundle next to your recycling bin for collection. Plastic wrapping, polystyrene and bubble wrap can’t be recycled yet, so this needs to go in your rubbish bin.

• 15 tonnes of Christmas cards and wrapping paper were recycled last year, saving 255 trees. Obviously, this is great for the environment, so doing the same again this year will only help. If you want to help even more, you could use gift bags instead of wrapping paper as these can be reused.

• If any of your presents need batteries, always opt for rechargeable ones. If you need to throw away old toys or electronics to make way for this year’s presents, always try to sell them online or give them to a charity shop first.

• Whilst plastic film, cellophane or plastic bags can’t yet be recycled, what you can recycle has dramatically increased. Along with drinks bottles, you can recycle yoghurt pots, butter and margarine tubs, fruit and vegetable punnets and plastic take away cartons.

• Plastic and metal sweet tubs, metal and foil cooking trays, kitchen foil, tea light holders, Christmas pudding tubs and drinks cartons can all also be recycled.

• If you have extra recycling from the festive period, simply place the extra items into a clear plastic bag and put it along side your recycling bin. By squashing bottles, you can make more room in your bin. It’s important to not put your recycling in a black bin bag as these can’t be recycled.

Why is it bad that food waste is sent to a landfill?

When waste, even organic food waste, is sent to a landfill it creates methane, a harmful greenhouse gas that destroys the earth’s atmosphere. This is due to air being unable to reach it.

With a compost bin, however, oxygen helps the waste to decompose without producing methane, with is great for the planet. Furthermore, when you use a compost bin, after 9 months to a year, you will have a nutrient rich and free fertiliser for your garden.

What should you put in a compost bin?

Waste items that can be put into a compost bin are split into ‘greens’ and ‘browns’. If your compost becomes too wet and starts to smell, you will need to add more ‘browns’ and if it’s too dry and not rotting, add more ‘greens’. Also remember to occasionally mix the material in your bin in order to allow air into it.

Greens

• Grass cuttings
• Tea bags
• Old flowers and nettles
• Vegetable peelings, fruit scraps and salad leaves
• Spent bedding plants
• Filter paper and coffee grounds
• Young annual weeds
• Rhubarb leaves

Browns

• Crushed egg shells
• Corrugated cardboard and scrunched up paper
• Egg and cereal boxes
• Garden prunings
• Toilet and kitchen roll tubes
• Straw and hay
• Twigs and hedge clippings
• Lumpwood charcoal, wood and paper ashes
• Wood chippings and sawdust
• Woody clippings
• Wool
• Feathers
• Cotton threads and natural fibre string
• Old natural fibre clothing, cut into small pieces
• Vacuum bag contents
• Shredded documentation
• Napkins, paper towels and tissues
• Corn stalks and cobs

Additionally, make sure you don’t use cooked vegetables, meat or dairy products. Diseased plants and animal waste should also be kept out of your compost bin.

Metals, glass and plastics should be recycled, rather than used in a compost bin. You should avoid composting perennial weeds or weeds with seed heads.

Get the most out of your compost bin

If you have left over compost from your bin, you can bag it up to use at a later date. On average, compost can be stored for up to a year. Old plastic sand bags are perfect for storing compost, and you may be able to get them for free at a builder’s yard.

Remember to always wear gloves when handling your compost.

Donate your furniture

Instead of throwing away an old but functional piece of furniture, you could always donate it to a charity shop and indirectly give to those in need. Charity shops provide all manner of possessions at a reasonable price for people to buy, allowing people on low incomes to buy the furniture they need. Bargain hunters and people wanting their own change will often look in charity shops, so you know your old furniture will be going to someone who loves it. Additionally, the profits from charity shops go towards raising funds for good causes. This means that not only do you get rid of your unwanted things; you’ll be helping out other people too.

Try selling your furniture

Furniture, along with goods such as fridges and TV sets are relatively easy to sell, putting your old possessions to use and possibly even profiting from it. Online marketplaces, such as Gumtree or EBay are well known ways to sell items. If you want to maximise your chances of getting rid of your furniture, you may want to try online marketplaces where you can offer it for free. You never know, you may find free items on there that you do want!

Furniture Swap

As long as your possessions are all in good condition, there’s no reason why you couldn’t swap everything you no longer wanted for item that would help with your new look. There are swaps organised by local communities regularly, so you could take your smaller pieces of furniture and clothes along.  Not only will you get rid of your unwanted items and pick up things you do want, you’ll have saved money too!

Upcycling

There is one option you could take with your old furniture where you don’t have to worry about anything or anyone else. If you’re creative and fancy a project to work on, you could always upcycle your current furniture. For example, whilst your fridge may be broken and no longer work, you could convert it into an awesome and a one-of-a-kind shelving unit for your games or DVDs. You’ll also be left with a sense of achievement from making something more valuable than the original.

Here we’re going to show you ten household items you should put to use again.

Old sandpaper – Your kitchen scissors looking a little dull? Hone them with a dulled piece of sandpaper so that they can cut at their best once more.

Wine corks – If you drink a lot of wine, you probably have some old corks lying around. These can be sliced into small pieces and stuck to the inside of your cabinet, dampening the noise made when you close the cabinet door.

Bottles – You can put those old wine bottles to use as candle holders too!

Toothbrushes – Old toothbrushes make excellent cleaning apparatus. They’re ideal for cleaning out grime between tiles or in the deep, grimy crevices of your oven.

Old credit cards – You usually cut your old credit cards up before throwing them out anyway, so why not cut them into a useful shape? If you play guitar, old credit cards make excellent plectrums. You can even buy plectrum shape cutters to help you get the job done.

Envelopes – Send a lot of letters? Why not make your envelopes go further by turning them inside out and re-gluing the seams.

Empty lipsticks – These make great little containers for sewing kit needles, pins, and hooks. Or, you could keep all of your hair pins in them.

Razor blades – Used blades are often still sharp enough to be used for cutting/sewing jobs. Store them in old matchboxes.

Suitcases – Wheel or handle snapped of a suitcase? Don’t throw it out. They make excellent storage containers for clothes and tuck under the bed perfectly.

Tissue boxes – Is your car filthy? Why not use old tissue boxes as little bins? Put an end to the footwell litter!

At A Plus Skips we are all about the environment and we want to help other people stay environmentally friendly too!

To hire one of our skips, contact us here today.

One item that we all now carry, that has a maximum lifespan of two years is the smartphone. In six years, it’s likely that you’ll have old phones littering your house. So to help ensure they aren’t going to waste, we’ve put together a quick guide on what to do with your old smartphones.

Pass it on

You might not have any use for the phone anymore, but that doesn’t mean no one else will. Smartphones are incredible pieces of technology, but for some people, they’re just too darn expensive. So why not give yours away? You might have a friend who’s broken theirs and isn’t covered by insurance. Or maybe you know someone who can’t get the cash together to buy one?

It’s better than having a phone just lying about!

Sell it

This is the most obvious and popular choice. If you’re switching phones, sell your old one and put that money towards the latest and greatest device. There are plenty of websites out there happy to buy your old mobile off you, so get to work comparing prices!

Turn it into a toy

Got kids? Why not load some games onto the device, switch the internet off it and let the kids use it as a games device. They probably always want to get their grubby hands on your phone, but you’ve just bought it! That’s why an old mobile is ideal!

Use it as your car MP3 player

Always want to put music on in your car from your phone, but don’t want to waste battery? Keep an old mobile in there full of songs that you can use as an on-the-go MP3 for while you’re on the road.

Recycle it

If you aren’t going to do any of the above and the mobile is completely useless to you, recycle it. The parts that make up a phone are still useful to a lot people and can be repurposed elsewhere.

So don’t leave old mobiles lying around. Put them to work!

But why?

The world’s population is growing, and quickly. Every one human that’s added to the planet increases the amount of waste that we produce. Not a good thing for environment.

But what’s most frustrating is that in most western countries it is possible to make a difference.

What is recycling?

Simply put – recycling involves turning used materials back into something that can be used again, rather than have them sit on a rubbish pile waiting to be destroyed. More often than not, a recyclable material will be converted back into its raw form, and then made into something else.

Natural resources on our planet are not limitless, so it’s important that we reuse products and materials where we can.

What materials can I recycle?

Unfortunately, not all materials can be recycled. At home you probably have more than just one bin. Each one is meant for a certain material, so that it can go either to the correct recycling facility, or straight to a landfill.

Recyclable materials and products are often labelled as so. Just make sure you check the packaging and you should be able to figure out whether you can or can’t recycle it.

Make an effort to find recycled products

While it’s a good idea to buy packaging and products that can be recycled, you should also try and buy items that have already been through the recycling process. There are more and more products on the market that have been created using recyclable methods. Governments are actively pushing companies to use environmentally friendly techniques, so expect to see a lot more items made this way.

Why is it important?

This question is asked so often, and unfortunately, there never seems to be a straightforward answer. That’s because it’s important for so many reasons!

Rubbish makes pollution. Pollution is bad for our environment. That’s the number one reason, and it’s a pretty good one! Burning all that trash creates a huge carbon footprint, which in turn damages the world we live in.

It creates jobs. Recycling plants need man power. The logistics involved in processing waste in an environmentally friendly way are so much harder than just burning it.

You pay for the waste you create. Landfill sites are taxed, so the more and more we rely on them, the more and more it’s going to cost a tax payer. Recycle more, the fewer landfill sites we’ll need!