How to avoid adding more waste to landfill sites

A landfill, in simple terms, is basically a large hole in the ground that is filled with all kinds of rubbish leftover from our daily lives. Once a hole is full it is sealed, covered over and another hole is made. A large amount of our waste in the UK ends up in landfill and unfortunately has an overwhelmingly bad impact on our air and water as well as natural habitats and animals.

Here are a few easy steps you can take to cut down on the amount of waste that you end up sending to landfill.

Change your eating habits
In the supermarket age of convenience, it’s easy to over buy and under eat. Quite often we will take advantage of buy one get one free offers and other deals that leave us with shopping baskets and trolleys stacked high. However, a huge proportion of the food that we buy isn’t needed, and one of the biggest contributors to landfill is in fact food waste.

To combat this, you should plan out your weekly food shop based on the meals that you will actually eat and therefore avoid having to throw out items that go out of date. You should also try and adopt a diet with plenty of fruit and veg and avoid takeaways which is not only good for your health but can also help you cut down on packaging waste should you buy loose vegetables.

Change your shopping habits
Another purchasing change that has created havoc on our environment and fuels our landfill growth is the idea of ‘throw away fashion’. Today many budget retailers offer a broad range of clothing and footwear for far cheaper than was ever possible in the past. Because of this, many people will opt for short-term products that are of low quality, but also low cost so they can simply replace them when they wear out or break. However, when they do this, more often than not the old items are discarded and end up in landfill.

To tackle this problem, you should try and take a more long-term approach with purchases, perhaps saving up for good quality and hard-wearing products that might cost a little more but will last you far longer than cheap ones.

Avoid single use products
Single use plastics are a blight on the environment and are one of the hardest types of products to recycle. Not only should you adopt a reusable water bottle rather than buying throwaway ones, but you should also do an audit of what other single use plastics you have lying about the home such as cleaning products like bleach and surface cleaner. Of course, you want a lovely clean home, but by using natural products like vinegar which often comes in a recyclable glass bottle, or lemons which will naturally decay, you can clean your home effectively and without the need for hazardous chemicals.

Hire a skip!
If you’re having a big clear out or moving to a new house, then hiring a skip is the number one environmentally friendly way to dispose of your waste. Here at LSPS all of our skips are taken to our waste transfer site where materials are separated, and every effort is made to recycle, recycle, recycle, thus lessening the impact on the environment and helping to avoid the damage caused by landfill.

You can book yours using our online form in just a few clicks here, or alternatively you can contact us on freephone 0800 083 7807.