An introduction to waste

Waste is a significant environmental problem. Making things from raw materials uses energy and other resources; when waste decays in landfill sites it contribute to climate change, and eventually we will run out of suitable sites for landfill. We can help reduce these problems by recycling waste and buying recycled products — most ‘waste’ has a value to somebody — and we can reduce them even more by reusing things instead of throwing them away, and by not buying things we don’t need in the first place:

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

Sustainable Wallingford’s Waste group was established to try to reduce the impact of Wallingford’s waste.  In South Oxfordshire, recycling rates have increased in recent years and are now among the best in the country, and we like to think that we, and the wider Community Action Group (CAG) initiative from which we receive advice and support, have made a contribution to that, but there is still plenty of room for improvement.

To read about what we have been doing about it, click here.

To read about how you can dispose of things without making the waste problem worse than it needs to be, click here.

To read about how you can reduce the problem by generating less waste in the first place, click here.