Recycling is something which is here to stay and it might help future generations, not to mention the planet, if we familiarized ourselves with what we can and cannot recycle – for example, our local council (Highland Region, Scotland) gives the following advice on plastics -

Only bottles with the symbol 1 (PET) and 2 (HDPE) will be accepted. Please do not put any other types of plastic and bottle caps in the containers as this will contaminate the load and may lead to the materials being rejected by the reprocessor and then sent to landfill.


This is the area in where I personally feel most confused and would be delighted if anyone could set me straight on this. I use so many plastic bottles, plastic milk cartons (6 and 4 pint ones – or 3 and 2 litre ones) that I fill my blue recycling bin very quickly, even though it is very large and it is collected once a fortnight. What is more, the packaging on food seems so wasteful and there is so little of it which can be recycled. For example, let’s say we get a ready meal in a black plastic tray…..sometimes this has one of the above symbols on it, very small, so you know you can recycle it, but what about the above triangle, complete with arrows, then PPP? What does that mean? I know certain recycling points and councils will recycle different plastics but this presupposes you have transport to get to those recycling points first! I wondered if anyone out there in YSP land has any ideas as to how to recycle or reuse any unusual items?

Let me give you a few examples – I recycle all my stamps by sending them to a charity – Bransby Home of Rest for Horses, Bransby, Lincoln, LN1 2PH. They are more than delighted to accept stamps to help rescued horses and ponies, donkeys and even goats sometimes. We have been saving them since my children were little and now they are 17 and 20! We used to save silver foil from sweets, chocolate, etc., and send this to the Guide Dogs for the Blind also for fundraising purposes, but I am not sure they take this anymore and in fact, have just emailed them to ask! I will let you know…as far as I know, you cannot recycle silver foil in any other way. A friend of mine has been told if he saves bottle tops to the weight of a certain disabled person he knows, the company concerned will provide this person with a wheelchair, so he has our whole company saving like mad, and they take any fizzy bottle tops, milk bottle tops and sauce bottle tops provided they are all plastic, and we have saved so many that we have nearly made it!! I will find out more and let you have an address if this is something you are interested in, because again, as far as I know there is nowhere else you can recycle these items. Textiles and shoes can be recycled in local charity shops and textile banks, but sadly textile banks do not take quilts – what do you do with these? Well, I have discovered the Blythswood Care charity will recycle them at their depots. Our local one is Evanton and our local driver comes once a week to our charity shop and he very kindly stopped by and collected our old worn-out quilts and even old pillows and cushions which we no longer use and simply could not get rid of any other way. Most charity shops, if you do not have any transport, will collect larger items from you and of course, there are charities such as New Start or Sofa Workshop who will take items of furniture in good condition and then revamp them for use in furnishing houses for homeless people who have just been allocated local council housing and have no furniture nor means to get any. So you can see that there are plenty of options available if you put your mind to it!!
I often use charity shops and jumble sales myself, and in fact, I buy clothing and books, etc., from them because I think clothing was better made further back and some of it has amazingly survived the test of time….let me give you an example of some of the bargains I have had in the past…..large corduroy overshirt (Boden) priced £2.42, as new. (I got this one only yesterday and am really pleased with it). Leather Sandals (Essence) for £4 four years ago which I still wear and are really comfortable, in the summertime. White shirt for my husband for £4 which he then spent a few pounds tie-dying and now it is a whole new artistic creation! I think with a bit of imagination and a very low budget such as many people now have, you can do really well in charity shops, but remember it is give as well as take, and bring your own carrier bags and sign up for gift aid so the charity shop can reclaim the tax back from your donations.