Shropshire residents encouraged to recycle aluminium foil this Christmas

Mince pies, turkey, wine and trays of party food are all the ingredients of a great Christmas celebration.  Shropshire households are being urged to make it a ‘green’ Christmas by remembering to recycle all our festive aluminium packaging including foil trays, aerosols, screw caps and tin foil.

With the average Shropshire household expected to generate an extra 30% of rubbish over the festive period its really important to use your kerbside recycling scheme to recycle more. 

At Christmas you’ll see aluminium foil containers being used in a wide range of food packaging including mince pies, oven-ready food such as turkey, sausages, party food and pre-prepared vegetables. Aerosols are a major feature in our bathrooms and bedrooms, used in deodorants, body sprays and haircare products. Once empty, all can be recycled under the scheme.

Shropshire-based Rick Hindley who is Executive director of the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro) Rick Hindley says: “Aluminium food and drink cans are already a familiar sight in most household recycling schemes, but it’s great to see that Shropshire also collects aerosols, foil trays, tin foil, metal lids from jars and aluminium screw caps from bottles too especially as we use more of them around Christmas. More than 580 million aerosols are used in the UK each year, plus 16,000 tonnes of foil trays – so recycling them has huge potential to save energy and cut the amount of waste going to landfill.”

Carry on composting this Christmas

With Christmas now only a couple of weeks away, the need to reduce waste is significant. Composting food waste can help, and a compost bin is the ideal gift for keen gardeners in your family.

Compost bins make a great Christmas present for green-fingered friends and family - so why not check out www.shropshire.getcomposting.com for ideas.  

At Christmas we always produce more food waste than at any other time of the year. The remnants of your New Year’s Eve party will also be a welcome addition to your compost bin such as nut shells and wooden cocktail sticks.  When the festivities have drawn to a close, if there is any room left in your compost bin you can add those natural home-made decorations like holly and ivy centre pieces, mistletoe and other compostable decorations.

So don't let the cold-weather put you off going down to the garden this Christmas, you can make your own compost, reduce waste and save money all year round with a compost heap.

Mumsnet survey finds people lack cooking skills

Are we in danger of losing basic cooking skills?

A recent survey we carried out with Mumsnet revealed just that almost a quarter of parents surveyed were not confident they could use leftovers to make another meal without resorting to a recipe. To curb a potentially lost generation of cooks we have launched ‘Save More’ to help people get to grips with budgeting, planning, and portioning in the kitchen along with money saving tools and tips.

Not only can confidence in the kitchen have a positive impact on our health and our families health but having these skills can also save us money and help to reduce household food waste.
 

How you can help?

1.    Download our Save More pack today and get sharing
2.    See the NEW report detailing how it was developed and tested. You can also check out our guide to setting up a new group.
3.    Share our NEW Mumsnet-Love Food Hate Waste infographic on cooking skills
4.    Check out our NEW Top tips for mums and dads from Love Food Hate Waste
5.    Pass on our hints and tips  to help rescue food.
6.    Share our recipes – many include videos to get you started

Local school gets composting

Kids from St Mary’s Bluecoat Primary School in Bridgnorth have been getting into gardening and composting following a talk about recycling from local Councillor John Hurst-Knight. 




















Pictured above are pupils Jack Coley, Jack Farmer, James Lannigan, Kai Embrey, Abigail Swinnerton, Phoebe Hadley, Ellie Cartman.

Recycled compost bins from the www.shropshire.getcomposting.com range were provided from ex-display stock by the Council.  The school were also supplied with seeds, gardening kit and six bags of Pro-grow compost (which is a peat-free growing medium made from local authority garden waste) sponsored by Veolia. 

The children are really keen gardeners and they meet every Tuesday after school and the kids said that they will use the new equipment to improve their skills and to grow plants which they sell on at their local Co-op store to raise funds for the school.  So now all in all the school is well and truly sorted out for gardening now and as a spin off a new social enterprise selling their produce has been born. 

The school head was really pleased with it too as she noted that not only would their be income from the plant sales but they by composting their food waste on site they will save money on their waste collection bills and also it will help towards their eco-schools status.  

Top tips from Love Food Hate Waste

Top tip   

This month our friends from Love Food Hate Waste – have provided some top tips for reducing the amount of veg which gets wasted:

1. Put old carrots or soft celery into a glass of water in the fridge to revive them.

 2. Add squashy tomatoes to a chilli or pasta sauce.

3.Use up cheap seasonal vegetables to 'bulk out' meals.

4. Vegetables that are past their best will make a great soup.

5. Frozen vegetables from the supermarket are just as healthy as fresh but hugely prevent wastage. 

For more great tips go our hints and tips pages or check out our A-Z of food saving tips

Grants available for community growing

Grants Available For Grow Wild Spaces

Grow Wild which is four-year campaign to bring people together to sow UK native plants.

They have just announced that local voluntary, community, parish and town councils, youth groups, health authorities and secondary schools; etc. can apply for grants of between £1,000 and £4,000 to create a "Grow Wild Community Site. Grow Wild projects can include an unloved area that organisations want to reclaim for their local community or perhaps somewhere that's a bit neglected or run-down and applicants want to turn it into an inspiring space for everyone. The funding cannot cover staff costs but can cover costs specifically for the Grow Wild project. Grow Wild expect most of Grow Wild's money to be used in creating the site, such as for materials, plants and seeds, and any volunteer costs. Grow Wild expect to fund 60 groups in 2015.

The closing date for applications is the 2nd December 2014.

For more information CLICK HERE 

Actinomycetes

   

Ever noticed a sort of white layer on your compost?  Often if you look closely you can see a kind of spiders web like coating of branches of grey-white filament.  It's not mould in most cases its actually a large colony of bacteria known as Actinomycetes.  These are a type of bacteria which can break down cellulose and lignin (the building blocks of plants) so they are absolutely fundamental to the composting process.

Interestingly they are also the same group of bacteria which cause gum disease but you needn't worry about that unless you plan on munching your way through a pile of compost!

Whilst individual bacteria (if looked at under a microscope) are rod-shaped they cluster together in colonies and form tree like shaped patterns leading the (incorrect but widely held for many years) assumption that they are a type of fungi. 

A higher-form bacteria actinomycetes live in soil naturally but are attracted into your compost heap to feed.  Grayish in appearance, they are crucial because they can process some of the more resistant materials in the pile such as tougher woodier lignin. 

They are the bacteria which is responsible for the pleasant earthy smell of compost. As they reduce materials, they liberate carbon, nitrogen, and ammonia, making nutrients available for higher plants.  Which is exactly what you need to help your garden grow. 

Make leaf mould this Autumn

If you want to try something new in the garden this Autumn, why not make your own leaf mould.  By dealing with your own leaves you directly benefit from the end product produced.  Also you help reduce waste which helps reduce lorry movements and avoids the huge financial cost and environmental impacts of waste management. Autumn strips our trees naked and carpets Shropshire with fallen leaves you really should see this not as a problem but an opportunity.  Leaves are a wonderful resource with which to make a rich leaf mould. 

So if you want to try something new in the garden this Autumn, why not make your leaves work for you. Leaf mould is not the same as compost.  Compost is produced by bacterial decomposition but leaf mould is produced by fungal decomposition.  It is a slow, cool process and requires minimal oxygen, which means you don’t have to turn it.

Here are our top tips to make good leaf mould for your garden.

 1. Rake up fallen leaves from deciduous trees into manageable piles.  Avoid evergreens as leaves are much tougher and take years to break down fully.  A good idea is to collect leaves using a lawn mower because chopped leaves rot down a bit more quickly, but the end product is just as good.   

2. Put leaves into a cage. These are simple to make from a roll of chicken wire. Alternatively a builders bag (with a couple of air holes in it) filled with autumn leaves and with its handles lashed together also works well.

3. Make sure leaves are wet, watering if necessary. This is essential to kick start their decomposition.

That’s it – now walk away – make yourself a cup of tea and put your feet up - it really is that simple.  Come back in a couple of a years and your cage will be full of rich organic humus.  You can utilise this around your garden as a soil improver, a potting mix or a mulch. 

So this autumn don't see collecting fallen leaves as a chore, see it as a gift.  

Plastic films

Alot of people ask about plastic film recycling.  This is something which is offered in Shropshire but not through the formal Council services, you have to take it back to the larger supermarkets around the county where they have carrier bag recycling containers in-store, this includes the larger super stores of: -

• Tesco
• Co-op
• Sainsburys
• Asda
• Morrisons

Most of us visit a large supermarket on a very regular basis and so it should be effortless to take your plastic bags and film back with you when you visit the stores instead of binning them.  I find the easiest thing is to keep a carrier bag in a cupboard and then i cram all my plastic bags into one. Its amazing how much you can squeeze in if you keep squashing more and more plastic film in there!  

And the key thing is now its not just plastic bags you can recycle but any of the similar stretchy plastic film.  So for example in the last week or so heres some things i have kept out of landfill and recycled with my carrier bags. 

A stretchy plastic wrapper from a multi pack of baked beans.  (Similar plastic wrappers found on multipacks of drinks cans etc can also be recycled with your carrier bags).  The simple thing is if it looks like a plastic bag and feels like a plastic bag then it probably is made of polythene and therefore OK to be included with the supermarket carrier bags for recycling.

 

Another one I recycle all the time is the plastic liner from cereal boxes - these are made of exactly the same plastic as carrier bags so can go back to the supermarket bag recycling point.

 

 

I also add all the plastic bags that my fruit and veg come in from apples to grapes and potato bags like this they can all be recycled at the larger supermarkets. 

 

 

Another useful tip is to look in your freezer - because generally speaking if a product is destined for freezing it will be wrapped in polythene, so all the bags your frozen peas and oven chips come in - all those sorts can be recycled with your carrier bags.  Also if you use freezer bags, the ziplock type or

 

 

Other obvious examples include plastic bags used for bread, which are obviously the same material as plastic shopping bags and so can be included.  One way to check if you want is to try the "stretch test".  Polythene is very stretchy and it will tend to stretch and give if you pull on it, unlike more brittle plastic films.  

 

To help make it a bit easier - some food & packaging producers and supermarkets are helpfully labelling the plastic as recyclable now.

For example this loo roll bag was well labled as (low-density) polythene which is the technical term for the type of thin stretchy plastic film they make carrier bags from.  
 

 

 

Other good examples I found include Kingsmill bread - so well done them for using the official British Retail Council on-pack label to remind everyone to "recycle with carrier bags at larger stores".
 

 

And brownie points too should go to West Mid Co-op who now have a policy of labelling all their fresh produce bags like this example I found on celery. 

 

Other common examples of recyclable plastic film includes magazine wrap, shrink wrap, polythene courier bags, plastic garment covers from the dry cleaners, plastic grocery bags, can six pack rings (you know the stretchy plasitc 'yolks' used to hold drinks cans together, and obviously all types of plastic shopping bag including bags for life.

Hopefully you will see more and more producers label the packaging, like this.  The clear instruction "Recycle with carrier bags at larger stores" and "not at the kerbside" hopefully makes it clear that you cant put this in the council plastic collections but you can recycle it simply by dropping it off at the supermarket next time you go shopping - its really easy and it will make a big difference, reducing the amount of rubbish in your bin and protecting the environment.

So the key message is if its plastic and its stretchy, dont bin it take it back to the supermarket for recycling!

For more information check out the recycle now webpage http://www.recyclenow.com/what-to-do-with/plastic-film 

Wrexham Anaerobic Digestion Plant - site visit

In late July, some local volunteers joined with local environmental group the Wasteless Society who organised a group visit to the Fre-Energy anaerobic digester (www.fre-energy.co.uk) near Wrexham.  Hosted by its designer James Murcott, and his colleague Angie Bywater, who gave us a fascinating explanation and guided tour of the facility.

This is an on-farm digester, located on the largest organic dairy farm in Wales, with a daily intake of 30 tonnes of cow slurry plus 6 tonnes of chicken litter a day from a local broiler unit.

The outputs are 160kW of electricity and 200kW heat, of which approx 30kW electricity is used on site to power the adjoining engineering business, the Fre-energy office, and a large 7 bedroom farmhouse. Approx 60kW of heat is used to heat the cow slurry and chicken litter in the digester up to 40°C and the rest is used to heat the house and office. The surplus of the electricity is exported to the National Grid.

The digestate produced, is then separated with the liquid being stored in a lagoon before being spread onto the grassland using an umbilical cord through a spike aerator. The solid digestate, which contains a higher proportion of the phosphate and potash, is transported by road to land used for growing winter crops to feed the dairy herd. Several allotment owners in the local village have used this product and have been so impressed that the owners say they could market it for a substantial sum.

The Fre-energy digester was designed specifically to take farm and organic waste, such as food, or as previously noted, by-products from intensive chicken production. The owners do not agree with the principle of diverting the growing of crops to fuel digesters, just to produce electricity, but rather believe that the use of slurry and organic and food waste, is a key solution to many of the energy, fertilisation and pollution challenges in farming and food production today.

A big thanks to Kate Evans who organised the fascinating trip which hopefully helps to raise awareness of this emerging green technology. 

Snailbeach litter volunteers

On a slightly overcast afternoon in May, Janet Ince and Pam Bickley from Snailbeach in South Shropshire did a litter pick on behalf of Snailbeach WI.  They started at Snailbeach WI and finished at the entrance to Coronation Cottage 

They collected 3 carrier bags full of rubbish - too much for such a beautiful village but enough to make the litter picking worthwhile.  Janet and Pam are hoping to do another litter pick later in the year when the verges are cut back so the village looks tidy for the winter. 

If you want to get involved either pop along to Snailbeach Village Hall on the second Thursday of every month at 7:30 pm or contact: 07905-636569

Making a compost toilet!

Making a Compost Toilet – Cwm Harry

Learn about the theory, principles and different techniques of compost toilets, the value of nutrient recycling and zero- waste systems. The workshop will include making a simple compost toilet for the community garden, giving you the skills to make one at home!!!

Start:	12 July 2014 9:30 am
End:	12 July 2014 4:30 pm
Venue:	Cwm Harry
Phone:	01686 626234
Address:	Cultivate Newtown Community Garden, Llanidloes Road, Newtown, Powys, SY16 4HX, Newtown, SY16 4HX, United Kingdom
Cost:	£30, bring and share lunch For more information visit www.cwmharry.org.uk

Do I really waste food?

More than two million of us have made changes to the way we shop, prepare, store and use food. This is brilliant – but there is still a lot more we all have to do. Love Food Hate Waste can help everyone take simple steps to stop wasting food and save money as a result. 

 Do I really waste food?

57% of us claim not to waste food (or very little) but in fact as a nation we are throwing away millions of tonnes of food and drink from our homes every year, and most of this could have been eaten. And while one in four of us think that the food we throw away doesn’t cost much, the fact is that food waste is hitting us in the pocket – it currently costs the typical household £480 a year.

If you really think you don’t waste food, why not set yourself a small challenge? There are some very simple steps you can take to ensure that you’re making the most of the food you buy.

The challenge!

First thing would be to look at what you are wasting. Try keeping a food waste diary for a few days, or put all the food and drink that you’d normally throw into the bin into a bucket or other container, to see how much there is. Then follow the simple steps below and measure again to see how much your waste has gone down!

Planning meals before heading out to do the shop and writing (and sticking to!) a shopping list really can save you pounds on your food bill. It only takes a few minutes to do, and there’s even a template meal planner on www.lovefoodhatewaste.com to get you started. Or, if you have a smartphone, you can do it using our new app! And if you need inspiration for what to eat, we’ve got hundreds of mouthwatering recipes online.

Once you’ve planned your meals, writing a list is easy – here are our top tips to make it become second-nature:

1. Keep a pad and pen in the kitchen - when you’ve got through the last of your favourites such as milk or cheese scribble it down on the list.
2. Shopping for specific ingredients with meals in mind and taking a list helps ensure we use what we buy.
3. Buying foods that can be used for several different dishes gives us flexibility to create different meals.
4. Look for food with the longest use-by date or fresh foods which can be frozen in case you don’t get round to eating them in time.
5. Have a quick rummage through the fridge, freezer and store cupboard once a week; it’ll end those evening runs to the local late night shop for essentials.

 

Skilling up in the kitchen

If you’re not feeling all that confident about your culinary capabilities, Love Food Hate Waste has a range of videos to show you how to cook some delicious, cheap meals from scratch! From an omelette to a quick pizza, a stir fry to a shepherd’s pie and pancakes to fruit crumble, there’s something for everyone. Don’t forget you can ask us questions via our website or Twitter if you get stuck.

Watch our neat video about meal planning to get more top tips: http://england.lovefoodhatewaste.com/content/meal-planning-tips

Perfect portions

Do you often find that you cook way too much rice, pasta or potatoes? Getting your portions right before you cook is one of the quickest and easiest ways to cut your food waste. Our Perfect Portion Tool removes the guesswork and makes sure you get the perfect portion, every time. It’s available on the app, too!

If you do end up cooking too much, don’t panic! There are countless fabulous recipes for using up these ingredients. And did you know you can freeze rice?

Share your successes!

There is nothing more satisfying than experimenting with ingredients to create new recipes that you and your family enjoy – and at the same time saving money! If you discover a tasty new way to use up a particular piece of food – tell us on our Twitter and Facebook pages! We’ll happily feature it on the website. Also, share your new kitchen confidence with your friends and family – everyone loves learning new tips, trying new recipes and finding interesting new ways to use up foods that they may otherwise have been thrown away.

Try this for a couple of weeks and see how much you can save on your food bills. A typical family would save £13 a week – how do YOU compare?

Shropshire business processing food waste

Shropshire Business Swancote Energy Ltd. http://www.swancoteenergy.com/ operate a state of the art Anaerobic Digestion plant on the outskirts of Bridgnorth. 

The 2.2MW plant produces enough renewable green energy for over 3,000 homes from a combination of food wastes and purpose grown energy crops, currently the annual processing capacity is 38,000 metric tonnes. 

Swancote Energy has a number of clients from across the West midlands region who send their waste here to avoid landfill charges and help reduce the environmental impact of waste management. The site contains the most up to date equipment available for processing food waste, which includes automated de-packaging machinery.  This gives them a crucial advantage when sourcing waste from retailers as they can accept it as it comes and then  separate the food waste from all types of packaging.

Their facility heats up the macerated waste to create a “soup” which bubbles away and creates a bio-gas (a mixture of carbon dioxide and methane) and digestate (a nitrogen rich fertiliser). A combined heat and power plant (generator) burns the biogas to create “green” electricity and heat. The electricity is fed directly into the national grid and the heat is used in the process.  The digestate is spread on nearby agricultural land to improve the soil. 

Anaerobic digestion is a process for dealing with organic waste which is sustainable, recovers the maximum energy and is a completely closed system with no emissions to air.  Income is generated through a combination of Feed in Tariffs and sales of electricity into the grid. In addition to this food waste attracts a gate fee as businesses will pay to get rid of it.

Owners Edward and Simon Davies said

“We could see that cost of power was only going to increase over the next 20 years. We realised that the payment tariffs available for AD would provide an alternative source of income for the farm as well as providing clean, renewable energy,”

The Green Cone

The Green Cone is a unique type of product which is available at discounted rates for residents in Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin via www.shropshire.getcomposting.com

The green cone is unusual for us composters - in that it doesn't actually produce any compost!! So... if you want lots of nutrient rich solid material to dig into your garden as a soil improver this is not really the solution for you.... However we know from talking to thousands of Shropshire residents each year that oddly though this may be an attraction for some folk who are less into gardening and simply want somewhere to get rid of food waste without having to fill up their rubbish bin!

Thats why the green cone is not strictly (by those of us in the know) refered to as a composter at all - its a food waste digestor.  Its literally just somewhere to safely and securely allow your food waste to rot down.

And the good thing about the Green Cone is that its rodent proof - so you can use it to get rid of ALL types of food waste, meat, fish, dairy, left over take away curry, you name it, it can all go into a green cone - which is great if you're a major carnivore or if primary motivation is just to reduce waste to landfill.

The main way that the Green cone acheives this is by the 'basket' which you bury in your garden and this stops pesky critters tunnelling under the cone to get at your leftovers.  The cone then goes on top to provide an entry route and accelerate the breakdown of the food waste. So its odd for us composters because its dug in to the ground it does feels some what almost like having a mini landfill site in your back yard!

This is of course very diffferent from a landfill though or from simply burying food in your garden because its an aerobic process.  So in that way its like composting, the food waste you put in is exposed to air.  This is completely unlike a landfill site where waste is compacted and buried and becomes deprived of air and thus breaks down anaerobically.



As the diagram above shows quite neatly, the green cone utilises aerobic decomposition.  The solar energy creates convection currents within the cone which drive air flow and keep the material well oxygenated so it breaks down into harmless products which actually fertilises the surrounding soil. 

So if you want to help reduce food waste to landfill go to www.shropshire.getcomposting.com and check out the Green Cone, this could be a great solution to help reduce waste disposal in Shropshire.

Pro-Grow

Pro-Grow is a fine grade, peat free soil conditioner, made from green garden waste and food waste material generated by households across Veolias local authority contracts in the UK.  This unwanted waste put out by households and collected by Veolia on behalf of various local councils. 

They then take the waste material to large centralised commercial composting sites for screening and shredding.  The shredded material is then rotted down aerobically in huge piles which are turned regularly to keep them oxygenated.  The process creates a quality product that is rich in nutrients and essential trace elements, providing plants with an ideal growing medium.

This 'soil conditioner' has an open structure that will break down heavy clay soils and add humus to light sandy soils and help make your garden beautiful. It complies with the rigorous standards of the Soil Association’s certified product accreditation (Certificate Number I 4430) and is entirely natural, containing no added fertilisers.

 

Pro-grow is on sale in Shropshire at the Councils Household Recycling Centres (the 'tip') in:

 

- Bridgnorth

- Craven Arms

- Oswestry

- Shrewsbury

- Whitchurch

 

For more information on this product visit http://www.pro-grow.com

Shropshire volunteers encourage residents to 'give it a grow'

Volunteers from Shropshire Master Composters have been helping with a campaign run by Garden Organic that seeks to get people in Shropshire and the wider midlands region to have a go at growing their own food for the first time. The campaign, the One Pot Pledge, aims to help gardening newcomers to grow an edible crop by using simple steps and clear advice to encourage and enthuse them.

Today we've been out in Shrewsbury handing out peas complete with organic peat free compost and a simple recycled pot to encourage more people to 'give it a grow'.  Its all part of a Lottery funded project which aims to encourage healthier eating and growing and it links in nicely with our own efforts to get people to compost more of their waste. 

At todays stall in Shrewsbury volunteers helped by staff from the local council gave out over 50 pots with pea seeds in and spoke to dozens more about how they could compost and grow their own.  The idea is to address some of the barriers to growing veg, because many are put off because they think they don’t have space to garden, or because they don’t have the time or knowledge. By encouraging people to start small with just one pot, the One Pot Pledge campaign aims to combat this, promising to make growing easy and successful.

According to Garden Organic research less than one-third of the UK has grown their own fruit or vegetables. The charity says that if every one of those people encouraged just one person to also give it a go then there would be over 6 million new gardeners experiencing the joy of sowing, growing and eating their own produce.

To join the campaign, go to The One Pot Pledge website, www.onepotpledge.org, which features everything from Garden Organic’s suggested list of perfect pot produce, to guidance on what size pot a new grower will need.  There are also ideas on what makes a good pot, downloadable growing advice and tips on each plant, as well as discounts and offers on seeds, compost and containers.

Special offer for Compost Awareness Week 2014

As part of International Compost Awareness Week (5 to 11 May 2014), people in Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin are being urged to take advantage of a special offer from www.getcomposting.com is encouraging more residents to get composting with a special ‘share and save’ offer on home composting bins.

The ‘buy one get one half price’ offer on the already discounted compost bins means residents can team up with a family member, friend or neighbour to each get a compost bin for only £14.98 plus delivery, a saving of over 60% on the RRP of £39.

Once put to use, household organic waste can be recycled into fantastic peat free compost, that will not only improve the quality of home-grown fruit and vegetables but increase yield, providing an abundance of produce to share between family and friends. Home composting has the added benefit of producing a free supply of top quality compost.

During Compost Awareness Week 2014, volunteers will be promoting home composting at the following venues: -

• Tuesday 6 May – Shrewsbury, The Square from 10 am – 3 pm
• Wednesday 7 May – Oswestry, The Outdoor Market (Bailey Head) from 10am – 2pm
• Thursday 8 May – Ludlow, adjacent to the Outdoor Market in Castle Square from 10am – 2 pm
• Friday 9 May – Bridgnorth, adjacent to the market under the old market hall from 10am – 2 pm

There are a range of compost bins and accessories available to suit new recruits and seasoned gardeners.  For full details or to order visit www.getcomposting.com or call 0844 571 4444. The ‘buy one get one half price’ offer is available on selected products.

Recycle your aerosols

Each year on average, the UK uses around 600 million aerosols – that works out at 27 households a year. The main body of an aerosol is usually made from tin-plated steel or aluminium, both of which are 100 per cent recyclable.

You can recycle any aerosol cans in Shropshire really easily.  Either pop them in your box at home with your cans and plastic or drop them off at your nearest recycling site with the cans, tins and aluminium foil.

Please remember:

• Make sure it is empty


• Do not attempt to pierce or squash the can


• Place in with your kerbside recycling box (or take it to a recycling centre)