How to reduce your rubbish to one bag a week - collection from bins

The One Bag a Week Challenge is here to help you waste less and help Lambeth become carbon neutral by 2030. See how you can reduce your rubbish collected from bins.

Many of the everyday things households throw away tend to be food or food-related. We’ll come to food itself in a moment, but first, let’s think about food packaging. The first bit of good news is that almost all of it’s recyclable from home:

  • Glass bottles and jars
  • Cardboard boxes, cartons and egg trays
  • Plastic pots, bottles, tubs and trays
  • Metal cans and tins
  • Food and drink cartons (Tetrapaks)

The second bit of good news is that many of the non-recyclable materials, such as plastic film and foil sheets or trays, can be scrunched up so they take up less space in your one bag a week!

Take your recycling to the next level

Keep your recycling separate

By far the easiest way to recycle effectively is to have separate containers in your kitchen for recyclable and non-recyclable waste. They could be separate bins designed for the purpose, or a bag hung on a door handle if space is an issue. Either way, having separate containers will get you into the habit of recycling much more easily than trying to separate out different items from the same bin. 

Rinse out food and drink packaging

Clean recycling means a clean recycling bin. It also reduces the risk of food and drink leftovers spoiling other recycling. It’s not necessary to make sure everything’s absolutely spotless (no need to put recycling in the dishwasher!), but a good rinse will go a long way. 

Lids can also be recycled

Please squeeze plastic bottles to get rid of as much air as possible and then put the lid back on. Metal lids from glass bottles and jars should go in your recycling bin separately.

Recycle all around the home

It’s not just food and drink packaging that’s recyclable. Many bathroom and cleaning products come in recyclable plastic bottles, and of course newspapers, magazines, envelopes, and the dreaded junk mail are also easily recycled.

Only put loose recycling in your recycling bin

Whatever container you use to keep your recycling in before it goes in your recycling bin, please tip everything in the bin loose and reuse the container. If recycling is contained in plastic bags, our crews can’t tell if the contents are recyclable so your bin might not be emptied, and plastic bags can’t go in your recycling bin. Find out where to recycle plastic bags.