Reduce
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What does reduce mean?
Health experts suggest that adults should drink just over one litre of water every day. This leaves us with a choice, either water from a tap or bottle?
From a rubbish point of view, water from a tap will not produce any rubbish (unless we use a disposable cup); bottled water however, will leave us with an empty bottle.
This ‘choice’ is a great example of how to reduce waste.
Reducing waste, is avoiding waste.
Everyone produces different amounts of waste because of the choices they make. Use the tips below to help you reduce your waste.
1) Throw less away.
Why? - This may seem obvious but surveys have shown that we waste loads just because we can. Did you know that 1/3 of the food we buy is thrown away without being touched, let alone eaten!
2) Where you have a choice, avoid anything disposable.
Why? – Disposable things are designed to be thrown away. The more disposable things we use, the more rubbish we will have and the more money we will spend.
3) Take a reusable bag shopping.
Why – This is one of the most common and easy ways of reducing rubbish. Avoid plastic bags, take your own, easy.
4) Donate or sell .
Why – This could be old clothes, CDs, games or anything you no longer want. Charity shops are everywhere, donating is easy and money helps the charity. If you would prefer to sell, try reuse websites like eBay.
5) Keep things longer.
Why – It could be clothes or phones, if we buy good quality and look after them, they will last a long time.
6) Buy loose.
Why – Buying loose, means things that are not wrapped in packaging. This means no waste.
Reducing waste is at the top of the waste hierarchy because when we reduce, we avoid making rubbish in the first place. So important is ‘reduce’ that recent legislation makes it compulsory for all EU Countries to publish a Waste Prevention Strategy. England will publish its strategy by 2013.
Businesses also reduce waste by using less material in design and manufacture. This helps them to reduce their costs and boost their environmental performance.
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This website is intended to provide a broad introduction to waste management in Devon, if it doesn’t answer all your waste questions, please contact us via the ‘Ask a question’ page on this site and we will do our best to answer it.
