Reducing your household waste

We can all play a part in making Barnsley more sustainable by reducing, reusing and recycling our waste where possible. By making some simple changes, we can all help our environment.

You should have four bins to help you separate and recycle your household rubbish:

blue bin for cardboard and paper
brown bin for cans, tins, glass bottles/jars, plastic bottles and pots, tubs and trays
green bin for garden waste
grey bin for general waste that can't be recycled

Find out what you can put in your bins and how to order a bin if you haven't got one.

Reducing waste

Reducing the amount of waste we produce should be the first thing we try to do to help our planet. Buying products loose reduces the amount of waste packaging used, as does using concentrated goods (such as laundry detergent) and refillable containers for things like coffee.

Switching from disposable nappies to 'real' cloth nappies can save thousands of these going to landfill. You can also claim for a grant towards the cost of a birth to potty pack though our real nappy incentive scheme.

To reduce the amount of garden waste you put in your green bin, you could compost at home.

Food waste

Every year in the UK, 6.6 million tonnes of household food is thrown away. This creates nearly 25 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions, equivalent to 5.4% of the UK’s emissions. A lot of this is food which could have been eaten, and is worth about £60 per month to the average family with two children.

You could reduce the amount of food you throw away by portion planning, careful shopping, better storage, knowing the difference between 'use by' and 'best before’ labels, and making use of leftovers.

Read some tips for reducing food waste, how to save money by changing your food habits, and about best before dates and where to store food.

Reusing items

Thinking about what we buy and how we use and then reuse them it is really simple and easy to do. You can:

donate items still in a good, usable condition to a charity shop, or take them to the reuse container at any of our household waste recycling centres
repurpose glass, plastic and cardboard containers to give them another life
carry reusable shopping bags
reuse wrapping paper and gift bags
convert old clothing, towels and sheets into cleaning rags and cloths
donate old magazines to your nearest GP or dentist surgery
reuse left over food to make new recipes

Find out how to reuse old clothes or make simple repairs and about reusing items at home, work, and out and about.

Recycling

By recycling waste it can be transformed into materials used to make new things. Lots of household items can be recycled at home by putting them in your blue or brown recycling bin. Find out what you can put in your bins.

If you can't put an item in your recycling bins, it may be accepted at our household waste recycling centres. Find out what you can take to the household waste recycling centre or see our A-Z of household waste items to find out more about what items you can recycle.