Go for recycling gold this Olympic season

Go for recycling gold this Olympic season

The Olympics are upon us! This summer the Paris Olympics are aiming to be the greenest Olympic games ever. While they are making big changes such as making athletes beds out of cardboard or tables from shuttlecocks, there are some simple things we can all do to be greener during the Olympics.

On our recycling podium, the top three items we collect in the orange lidded recycling bin are …

1. Paper
2. Cardboard
3. Plastic pots tubs and trays

Keep recycling all of these, but did you know so many more items can go into your orange lidded recycling bin? These include:

• Plastic bottles, from milk, water and soft drink bottles to empty bleach, cleaning product and shampoo bottles
• Empty aerosols
• Drinks cans
• Metal tins, including biscuit and chocolate tins and their lids.

Create your own mini recycled Olympics

Get the kids involved and set up your own mini Olympics in the garden or living room, using only items you can find around the house or in your recycling bin!

Obstacle course:

Collect up some twigs/branches or broom for poles and set these up around the garden, propped up at varying heights using cans, bottles or cardboard boxes. See how quickly the family can just over (or under) the various obstacles.

Tower smash:

Create a tower of empty bottles or drinks cans. The first challenge is to see how tall you can make your tower without it falling over.

Then scrunch up a ball of used kitchen foil or find a tennis ball (or similar size) and throw at your tower to see how many bottles or cans you can knock over. See who can knock the most down.

Enjoy the action in a waste free way

If you are getting together with family or friends to watch the Olympics action here are some top tips to celebrate without anything going to waste!

Glass bottles and jars simply need rinsing out and taking to your local mini recycling site.

Tin foil can be recycled by cleaning it and then scrunching it up into a small football shape and pop it in your orange lidded recycling bin.

Pizza boxes are made of cardboard, so they can go in the main recycling as long as they’re not soaked in grease. Make sure there are no stray crusts inside them before you put them in your recycling bin, and any plastic pots of garlic dip can be rinsed out and recycled too.

Takeaway tubs and trays, whether made from aluminium foil or plastic, both can either be reused or recycled – remember to empty and rinse them before putting them in your orange lidded bin.

Snack wrappers cannot be recycled in your orange lidded bin, but don’t despair! Many soft plastic recycling points at supermarkets accept a variety of packaging, from crisp packets, multi pack wrapping, biscuits and chocolate wrapping.