Green A to Z

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Cables

Calculators

RE-USE

Cameras

Candle Wax

RE-USE

Candle Wax can be re-used.

REUSE

  • The obvious use of left-over candle wax is to make new candles out of it. See here for tips on how to make the most of your old candles.
  • You can also use your old candle wax to make fire starters. You will need some pine cones. To keep costs down collect these yourself. See here to learn how to make pine cone fire starters.

Car Batteries

RECYCLE

Yes Car Batteries can be recycled.

RECYCLED
Where?

  • Please take them to the Brighton Household Waste & Recycling site on Wilson Avenue or the Hove Household Waste & Recycling site on the Old Shoreham Road. See here for exact locations and opening times. For more details contact City Clean on 01273 292929.
  • Alternatively they can be traded in at a local scrap metal company. You will need to contact them first to discuss arrangements. The Green Centre uses 2 different local companies;
    • Argyle Metals Ltd which is a family run company. Their number is 01273 680559.
    • Geo.E.Richardson & Sons Ltd. Their number is 01273 570246.

Car Engines

RE-USE RECYCLE

Yes car engines can be reused & recycled.

REUSED
Where?

  • If you have an old car engine contact Brighton Motorama Ltd for more details or call 01273 517160 for more details

RECYCLED
Where?

  • If you have an old car engine contact Brighton Motorama Ltd for more details or call 01273 517160 for more details

Cardboard

RECYCLE

Yes cardboard can be reused and recycled.

REUSE

  • If you have cardboard boxes you can donate them to people moving house
  • Cardboard can be used in the garden; as a weed-suppressing mulch or it can be added to your compost bin in small pieces.

RECYCLED
Where?

  • Cardboard can be included in Brighton & Hove City Council Recycling.
  • Residents receiving a black box collection can put household cardboard in their black box along with paper, aerosols [remove the lid] drinks cans, food cans and plastic bottles [milk put the lid inside, other bottles put the lid back on]. Glass bottles and jars go in a separate container.
  • Residents in flats with a recycling service can deposit their cardboard in their communla recycling bins. It can also be taken to 75 recycling points across the city.
  • Cardboard can also be taken to the Brighton Household Waste & Recycling site on Wilson Avenue or the Hove Household Waste & Recycling site on the Old Shoreham Road. See here for exact locations and opening times. For more details contact City Clean on 01273 292929.

How?

  • Flatten cardboard
  • Tear into smaller pieces
  • Remove non-cardboard packaging such as plastic & polystyrene.
  • Small amounts of tape and staples are acceptable.

Cards - greetings

RE-USE RECYCLE

Yes cardboard can be reused and recycled.

REUSE

  • Reuse greetings cards by cutting off the picture to make a new card

RECYCLED
Where?

  • Cards can be included in Brighton & Hove City Council Recycling.
  • Residents receiving a black box collection can put cards in their black box along with paper, cardboard, aerosols [remove the lid] drinks cans, food cans and plastic bottles [milk put the lid inside, other bottles put the lid back on]. Glass bottles and jars go in a separate container.
  • Residents in flats with a recycling service can deposit their cards in their communal recycling bins. It can also be taken to 75 recycling points across the city.
  • Cards can also be taken to the Brighton Household Waste & Recycling site on Wilson Avenue or the Hove Household Waste & Recycling site on the Old Shoreham Road. See here for exact locations and opening times. For more details contact City Clean on 01273 292929.

How?

  • Only cards without glitter or foil cannot be recycled otherwise they should be placed in your household rubbish.

Carpentry Tools

RE-USE

See Tools

Carrier Bags

REDUCE RE-USE RECYCLE

Yes carrier bags can be reused and recycled.

REUSED
How?

  • Use them again and again as shopping bags.
  • Use them as bin liners.
  • Keep your feet dry in leaking shoes/boots.
  • Use them as packaging to protect fragile items.
  • You can turn them into plastic ribbons for crochet/knitting.

See here for 39 ways to reuse your plastic bags

RECYCLE
Where?
Most large supermarkets run recycling schemes including;

DID YOU KNOW?

  • Around 42% of us fail to recycle carrier bags. Annually the UK wastes 6 billion carrier bags which last year amounted to 40,000 tonnes. 
  • The most important action regarding carrier bags is to reduce or re-use them. This is easily done by using a "bag for life" which is available at all major supermarkets or by re-using your carrier bags. Try to adopt a new habit of taking a handful of carrier bags with you whenever you go shopping or leaving a handful in your car. 

CD's

RE-USE RECYCLE

Yes CDs can be reused and recycled.

REUSE
There are a number of ways you can re-use your CDs;

  • You can donate them to a charity shop.
  • You can sell them at a car boot sale or use a number of specialist online platforms;
  • You can also give it away for free through Freegle.

RECYCLED
Where?

  • CDs can also be taken to the Brighton Household Waste & Recycling site on Wilson Avenue or the Hove Household Waste & Recycling site on the Old Shoreham Road. See here for exact locations and opening times. For more details contact City Clean on 01273 292929.
  • CDs can be recycled through Terracycle however it is very expensive.

How?

Ceramics

RECYCLE

Yes ceramics can be reused or recycled.

REUSE
Where?

  • You can donate them to a charity shop.
  • You can sell them at a car boot sale or use a number of online platforms including Gumtree, Friday-Ad, Facebook selling pages and other online platforms. 
  • You can also give them away for free through Freegle.

RECYCLE
Where?

  • Please take them to the Brighton Household Waste & Recycling site on Wilson Avenue or the Hove Household Waste & Recycling site on the Old Shoreham Road. See here for exact locations and opening times. For more details contact City Clean on 01273 292929.

How?

  • There is a limit of six small builder’s bags for each household each month.

Chain Saws

RE-USE

See Tools

Chargers

Cheese Packaging

Yes cheese packaging can be recycled.

RECYCLED
Where?

How?

  • Any brand of flexible plastic cheese pouches
  • Any brand of individual plastic cheese wrappers
  • Any brand of sliced cheese protective plastic film
  • Labels from Cathedral City Minis packs of 6
  • Any brand of plastic nets for mini cheeses
  • Further details here.

DID YOU KNOW?

  • This scheme is operated through Terracycle and sponsored by Cathedral City. The wrappers are cleaned, melted in to hard plastic and remoulded to make new items.

Chemicals

RECYCLE

Yes certain chemicals can be recycled.

RECYCLE
Where?

  • Please take them to the Brighton Household Waste & Recycling site on Wilson Avenue or the Hove Household Waste & Recycling site on the Old Shoreham Road. See here for exact locations and opening times. For more details contact City Clean on 01273 292929.

How?

  • Please ensure they are in sealed leak-proof containers.
  • They should be placed on the chemical deposit table.

N.B The recycling sites are for household waste from city residents only. Business waste will not be accepted.

China

REDUCE RE-USE RECYCLE

Yes china can be re-used.

REUSE
Where?

  • You can donate it to a charity shop.
  • You can sell it at a car boot sale or use a number of online platforms including Gumtree, Friday-Ad, Facebook selling pages and other online platforms. 
  • You can also give it away for free through Freegle.

Chipboard

see Wood

Christmas Trees

RECYCLE

Yes Christmas trees can be recycled.

RECYCLE
Where?

  • At one of the Christmas tree recycling sites which are opened by the Council each year after Christmas
  • Please take them to the Brighton Household Waste & Recycling site on Wilson Avenue or the Hove Household Waste & Recycling site on the Old Shoreham Road. See here for exact locations and opening times. For more details contact City Clean on 01273 292929.
  • If you have signed up to the Council garden waste collections, a Christmas tree can be placed in your brown garden bin - if they fit.

DID YOU KNOW?

  • In the UK we spend 2.3 billion on Christmas trees and decorations. Check out this infographic for more interesting facts about Christmas trees.

Clinical Waste

Contact City Clean on 01273 292929 for advice on disposing of clinical waste.

Clothes

REDUCE RE-USE RECYCLE

see Textiles

Coat hangers

RE-USE RECYCLE

Yes coat hangers can be reused and recycled.

REUSED
Where?
There is an abundance of coat hangers and you are encouraged NOT to purchase new but instead acquire them 2nd hand.

  • Coat hangers in working condition can be donated to a charity shop.
  • You can also give them away or ask for them for free through Freegle.
  • See here for 28 uses for coat hangers.

RECYCLE
Where?

  • Please take them to the Brighton Household Waste & Recycling site on Wilson Avenue or the Hove Household Waste & Recycling site on the Old Shoreham Road. See here for exact locations and opening times. For more details contact City Clean on 01273 292929.

How?

  • Dismantle wooden hangers by separating the metal from the wood and place in the appropriate containers; wood, metal.
  • Hangers made entirely from metal go in the metal container.
  • Plastic coat hangers, if broken, go in general waste.

DID YOU KNOW?

  • According to Green Progress, over 8-10 billion plastic and wire hangers are sold each year across the world with only 15% ever being recycled.

 

Coats

RE-USE RECYCLE

See Textiles

Cobbler's Tools

RE-USE

See Tools

Coffee Cups - takeaway

Yes takeaway coffee cups can be recycled BUT cups are made from so many different materials that it has become incredibly complex. The three main categories are;

  1. Cardboard.
  2. Compostable.
  3. Biodegradable.

RECYCLED
Where?

  • Carboard: you can identify these cups quite easily as they will NOT be labelled as compostable or biodegradable and in the absence of these 2 labels we can assume they are made from cardboard. If so you have 3 choices;
     
    • Costa coffee - will accept any brand of coffee cups in any of their stores.
    • Brighton & Hove City Council Tetra Pak bins - see Tetra Paks for bin locations.
  • Compostable: compostable take away coffee cups are designed to be composted in a commercial composter and not a home composter unless they specifically state, "For home composting". Most don't. There is only one scheme in Brighton and Hove;

    • The Green Centre - will accept only Vegware cups for recycling. The cups are clearly labelled as Vegware. There is no facility for recycling other compostable cups. 
  •  Biodegradable: 

N.B. There is another scheme available in Brighton and Hove called the Cup Neutral scheme which is a local collaboration between Brighton Catering Supplies, Small Batch and other independent cafes and hospitality business in Brighton and Hove. There are bins throughout the city. See the map on their website.

How?

  • The most important thing is to identify which of the three categories your cup falls into and then see where you can recycle it.  

DID YOU KNOW?

  • The UK consumes 2.5 billion coffee cups per year.
  • 99.75% of coffee cups in the UK don’t get recycled.

Coffee grounds (Commercial)

RECYCLE

Yes coffee grounds produced commercially can be recycled.

RECYCLED
Where?

  • Bio-bean - contact 0203 744 6500 for more details

DID YOU KNOW?

  • Bio-bean was founded in 2013 by Arthur Kay, and is the first company in the world to industrialise the process of recycling waste coffee grounds into advanced biofuels and biochemicals.
  • Bio-bean works within the existing energy and waste infrastructure to collect spent coffee grounds from coffee shops, offices, transport hubs and coffee factories, recycling them into sustainable and high-performance products and displacing conventional fuels and chemicals.
  • The UK produces 500,000 tonnes of waste coffee grounds every year, most of which is disposed of via landfill where it emits methane, a greenhouse gas that is 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Coffee Packaging [flexible plastic]

Coffee Pods

Yes coffee pods can be recycled. There are a range of coffee pods available and they all have their own scheme.

RECYCLED
Where?

Coins

RE-USE

Yes coins can be reused and recycled.

REUSE
Coins of any sort including old British currency, foreign currency, etc.

  • The Green Centre at Brighton Open Market. More details here.
  • We support 2 charities through this scheme;
  • Alternatively you can take your coins to Valelink Ltd, a coin shop, at 26 Queens Road, Brighton. The telephone number is 01273 202906.
  • There is also a shop in Hove called The Hove Coin Shop at 3 Planet House, The Drive, Hove. The telephone number is 01273 737537.

RECYCLED
Where?

  • The Green Centre at Brighton Open Market. More details here.

How?

  • We accept old British currency, coins and notes.
  • We can also accept all foreign currency, coins and notes, including currency no longer in circulation.

 

Colouring Books

Colouring Pencils

RE-USE

Commercial Waste

RECYCLE

Composting

RECYCLE

see Food and Garden Waste

Computer Games

RE-USE

Yes computer games can be reused.

REUSE
Where?
The opportunity to trade in your old PlayStation, Xbox, PC and Nintendo Wii games offers the chance to offset the value of your old games against a new purchase. It also gives other people the chance to acquire second-hand console games at a fraction of the original price.

  • Your video games can be sold online with CeX or in store. There is a store in Brighton at 144 Western Road and another in  Hove at 71 George Street. 
  • You can sell them through Music Magpie and Ziffit who both specialize in buying and selling games.  
  • You can donate them to a charity shop.
  • You can sell them at a car boot sale or use a number of online platforms including Gumtree, Friday-Ad, Facebook selling pages and other online platforms. 
  • You can also give them away for free through Freegle.

Computer Monitors

RECYCLE

Computers

RE-USE RECYCLE

Yes computers can be reused and recycled.

REUSE

We do urge you to think seriously about all your computer purchases. Do you really need to update? Are you falling for all the marketing hype? What do you actually do on your computer?

  • Tech-Takeback allows residents to donate old tech for secure data erasure followed by re-use where tech is given a 2nd life (if feasible) with charities. This is done through pop up shops. Please see their website for the next dates in Brighton.
  • Staying locally you can also use Freecycle to dispose of any machine which is actually working and all those leads and other paraphernalia that could be useful to others!

RECYCLE
Where?
Rafts of other worthwhile charities are running schemes to ensure that surplus, outdated technological items are not sent to landfill;

  • 'Computers For Charities' who will send working units on to less economically developed countries.
  • You can offer up your extra computer components and peripherals to other individuals within the UK via 'Donate a PC
  • Businesses can donate old computers through 'Computer Aid
  • Recycle IT are a specialist computer recycling company where old or broken hardware is disassembled into metal, circuit boards, cabling, and plastics - all of which is recyclable!  Other working computers are donated to schools or charities that can put them to good use.  

Confectionery

Confidential Paper Waste (shredded)

RE-USE

Yes confidential paper waste which has been shredded can be reused in small amounts but not recycled. 

REUSE

  • Use as animal bedding.
  • Use in your compost bin.

Otherwise include with your general waste.

Construction Material

RE-USE RECYCLE

Yes construction materials can be reused and recycled.

REUSE
Where?

  • Materials which are still useable can be sold or donated for use in the garden, at allotment sites and for building projects.
  • You can also give it away for free through Freegle.

RECYCLE
Where?

  • You can recycle a limited amount of construction materials from home improvements or DIY at Brighton Household Waste & Recycling site on Wilson Avenue or the Hove Household Waste & Recycling site on the Old Shoreham Road. See here for exact locations and opening times. For more details contact City Clean on 01273 292929.

Please note: Construction materials which are part of business waste which is any waste from commercial, trade or business activities can not be disposed of at Household Waste and Recycling sites. This includes any waste from domestic properties used for profit (for example landlords taking waste from a rented property) and waste that is being removed for payment.

Council staff have the right to inspect any waste entering the recycling sites and if they suspect your waste is business waste you will be turned away.

 

Contact Lenses

Yes contact lenses can be recycled.

RECYCLED
Where?

  • Drop them off at The Specky Wren Opticians at Brighton Open Market. You'll find them at the London Road entrance to the market on the left hand side.

How?

  • You can include any brand of soft, disposable contact lenses
  • Contact lens blister packaging
  • Outer foil 

Cookers

RECYCLE

Cooking Oil

RECYCLE

Yes cooking oil can be recycled.

Used cooking oil must not be disposed of via the drainage system as it can lead to blockages.

RECYCLE 
Where?

  • Please take them to the Brighton Household Waste & Recycling site on Wilson Avenue or the Hove Household Waste & Recycling site on the Old Shoreham Road. See here for exact locations and opening times. For more details contact City Clean on 01273 292929.

How?

  • When taking to the Household Waste & Recycling site please put it in a sealed leak-proof container and place it on the oil deposit table.
  • Do not worry about small particles of food matter left in the oil - this will be sieved out. DO NOT INCLUDE oil contaminated with animal fat.
  • The following oils can be accepted;
    • maize
    • olive
    • palm
    • rapeseed
    • soya
    • sunflower
    • safflower
    • sesame
    • almond
    • coconut
    • groundnut
    • peanut
    • walnut oil

Copper

RECYCLE

Corks

RE-USE RECYCLE

Yes corks can be reused and recycled.

REUSED

  • Check Pinterest for out how to upcycle, reuse and repurpose corks

RECYCLED
Where?

  • The Green Centre at Brighton Open Market. More details here.

How?

  • Please remove any metal components, e.g. champagne meatl cap

Cosmetics

RECYCLE

see Make-up

Cottons

RE-USE RECYCLE

See Textiles for cotton material or Haberdashery sewing cotton.

Creosote

see Chemicals

Crisp packets

Crochet Hooks

RE-USE

Currency

see Coins

Curtains

RE-USE RECYCLE

See Textiles

Cushions

REDUCE RE-USE

Yes cushions can be reused BUT they can not be recycled because they are not accepted by the textiles recycling industry. 

REUSE

  • If the outer covering of your cushion is torn or damaged then simply purchase a new cover.
  • If the stuffing is no longer effective then purchase additional stuffing or you can place the cushion in a smaller cover. 
  • It can be used to replenish other cushions, or bean bags or pillows.
  • It can be used for craft projects.
  • It can be used to make a pet bed or for bedding for a hamster.

 

Cutlery

RE-USE RECYCLE