New garden waste service coming to Purbeck

If you live in Purbeck you have until 31 July to apply for an optional, chargeable garden waste service, beginning in November.

By having your garden waste collected from the kerbside, you could save time, fuel and money and help the environment by cutting down on trips to your local household recycling centres and the need for bonfires.

The service offers a fortnightly collection and a choice of bins:

• 240-litre wheelie bin £35 per year
• 120-litre reusable bag for £25 per year

You can apply and pay by using the quick and secure online form at http://www.dorsetforyou.com/recyclefordorset/gardenwaste or by calling 01305 221040.

The garden waste collected in Dorset is taken for natural composting, where it is turned into high-grade, soil-improving compost.

Calling all tea lovers

PG Tips has joined forces with Recyclebank to offer you money off vouchers if you pledge to recycle your teabags.

Every year, our love of tea produces 370,000 tonnes of used teabags around the UK. If sent to landfill all these teabags produce harmful greenhouse gasses as they decompose.

 How to recycle your tea bags:

• Compost them. The Dorset Waste Partnership has some great offers on compost bins to get you started
• Don’t have room for a compost bin? You can simply open the bags and scatter the tea leaves around your plants; the caffeine acts as an excellent natural herbicide
• If you receive a food waste collection, simply pop them in your food waste bin

Freezer frenzy

Did you know: The average UK household spends £680 a year on food that ends up in the bin. This leads to a massive 7.2 tonnes of extra waste every year. 

If you want to make a change try our favourite ways to save food and money using your freezer:

• Freeze leftovers, simply portion, cool, label and pop in your freezer.
• If you’re not going to have time to eat your meat put it in the freezer before the use by date and use within 24 hours of defrosting.
• Did you know pasta sauces and pesto can be frozen? Only cook what you need and freeze leftover sauces for another meal.
• You can freeze leftover rice if you make too much. This handy video from Love Food Hate Waste tells you how.
• Wrap food carefully or store it in air-tight containers to avoid freezer burn.
• If you like fresh herbs try chopping them, popping them in an ice-cube tray and adding a little water, perfect every time!

Did you know you can now recycle your inhalers?

Thanks to a nationwide campaign by GlaxoSmithKline called ‘complete the cycle’  inhalers can now by recycled rather than sent for incineration or landfill.

According to GSK research 512,330 tonnes of CO2 could be saved if every person in the UK returned all their inhalers for one year.*

To recycle your empty or out of date inhalers use the quick postcode search to find out where your nearest participating pharmacy.

* GSK data on file. UK Inhaler recycing & environmental claims July 12

Reduce your waste

Looking for ways to reduce your waste? Here are our top tips:

• Try the Love Food Hate Waste portion planner and see how much food, money and waste you can save
• Register with the Mail Preference Service and limit the amount of junk mail you recieve
• Buy concentrated products and refills, like detergent and coffee and cut down on packaging
• Use rechargeable batteries, they last up to 1000 longer
• Remember to take a cloth bag or old plastic bags shopping with you
• Make your own compost from your garden waste and fruit and veg peelings
• Switch to real nappies, and you could cut your waste by 50 per cent

Recycle in the pink

Has the spark gone out between you and your hair dryer? Or have you lost the connection with your phone? Well you can now recycle them at the new small electricals recycling bank in Southill car park, Weymouth.

Yes please:

• DVD/VCR players
• Kettles
• Electric toothbrushes
• Small electrical DIY tools
• Clocks (battery or electrical)
• Computer games
• And other small electricals

 No thanks:

• Broken items
• Video tapes
• Rubbish

Please recycle large or broken electrical items at your local HRC.

Compost Awareness Week: Top tips

• Aim for a 50/50 balance of ‘browns’ and ‘greens’
• Browns include cardboard, egg boxes, scrunched up paper, fallen leaves, sawdust, twigs, branches and bark
• Greens include: tea bags, grass cutting, fruit and veg scraps, old flowers, coffee grounds, filter paper, rhubarb leaves and young annual weeds
• Nettles soaked in cold water make a great activator for your compost
• It is best to place your bin on soil or on a wire mesh above a one inch hole
• Don’t let your compost dry out or get too wet
• Occasionally small animals can become a pest, if this is a case place large stones around the base of your bin to discourage them from trying to burrow underneath
• Turning the matter inside your bin from time to time will help to speed up the process
• Chop or shred hedge clipping into smaller pieces so they break down at the same rate as everything else
• Keep the diet balanced; too much of any one material will slow the process down
• A little sun every day will help speed the process up

Gull proof bags for Weymouth and Portland

If you live in Weymouth or Portland and recieve a weekly black sack collection you can apply for a free gull proof bag to protect you rubbish.

 Gull proof bags:

• Help to protect your rubbish from vermin
• Help to reduce litter on your streets
• Fold flat for easy storage between collections

To claim your free bag call the Dorset Waste Partnership on 01305 838000.

Compost Awareness Week: Compost bin offers

Did you know up to 30 per cent of what you throw away each week could be turned into nutrient rich compost? Dorset Waste Partnership has teamed up with getcomposting.com to bring residents compost bins for as little as 16.98.

It is more important than ever to reduce the waste we send to landfill, and composting is a great way to do this. Not only could you drastically reduce you waste every week but you end up with nutrient rich compost to use in your garden.

If composting isn’t for you, the new recycle for Dorset garden waste service is now available, or will be very shortly, in Christchurch, East Dorset and North Dorset. A year’s subscription is available from £25 for a bag service, or £35 for a bin service.

Get creative for compost awareness

Spice up your garden by decorating your compost bin for Compost Awareness week this year which starts on 6th May.

Garden Organic, in association with Master Composters have organised ‘Decorate your compost bin’ competition, all you have to do is get creative with your bin, take a snapshot of your artwork and e-mail or post it to Garden Organic by Wednesday 8th May.

It’s a great opportunity for all the family to get involved with composting with categories for under 11’s, 11-18 years and adults. You can even enter as a group or class; simply complete the application as normal and give average age of the group.

If you haven’t got a compost bin yet don’t worry, Dorset Waste Partnership have teamed up with getcomposting.com so you can make the most of your kitchen scraps and garden waste without breaking the bank.

For inspiration and more details on how to enter visit Garden Organic.