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

Magazines

RE-USE RECYCLE

Yes magazines can be reused and recycled.

REUSE

  • You can reuse old magazines for collages or art projects.
  • You can give them away locally using Freegle. 

RECYCLED
Where?

  • Magazines can be included in your kerbside recycling collection.

DID YOU KNOW?

  • It takes one tree to make 230 average sized newspapers/magazines.
  • In the UK, we use over 12.5 million tonnes of paper each year. This equates to a forest the size of Wales.
  • We recycle around 80% of paper in the UK. If every person in the UK recycled just 10% more paper, we would save approximately 5 million trees each year.
  • By recycling just one tonne of paper, we can save 17 trees and 4000 KW of energy, that’s enough to power a house for a year.It will also save 380 gallons of oil, 7000 gallons of water, and around 3 cubic metres of landfill space.

Make-up

RE-USE RECYCLE

Yes make -up can be reused and recycled.

REUSE

  • The Green Centre at Brighton Open Market. More details here.
  • We accept new or barely used make-up where it will be re-sold to support the project or given away on our Mini Freegle table.

RECYCLED
Where?

  • Super Drug on St James Street accept make up for recycling. 
  • Boots accept a lot of make-up items and a range of other personal care items. Here is a very comprehensive list of items they accept.
  • The Body Shop accepts empty containers of their own brand. 

 

Marigold Gloves

Yes Marigold gloves and the packaging can be recycled.

RECYCLED
Where?

  • This scheme is operated by Terracycle. There are NO public collection points in Brighton & Hove therefore you will need to set up your own Terracycle account and join the Marigold Gloves recycling programme.  More details here.

How?

  • Marigold durable gloves
  • Marigold disposable gloves
  • Marigold Gloves plastic packaging
  • See a visual here.

DID YOU KNOW?

  • Classed as a luxury item when they were first developed in the UK back in 1947, Marigold Gloves were originally sold only in one colour (orange). 
  • Marigold now has a glove for every occasion, whether you’re cooking, cleaning, DIY-ing or just generally doing dirty jobs.

Masonry Tools

RE-USE

See Tools

Material

RE-USE

Mattresses

RECYCLE

Yes mattresses can be reused and recycled.

REUSE
If your mattress is in good condition, clean, without rips and stains and carries a fire safety label then you might be able to dispose of it in the following ways;

  • You can donate it to a charity shop.
  • You can 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.

RECYCLED
Where?

  • Contact Collect Your Old Bed who specialize in bed recycling. Collections start from as little as £11.99. PLEASE NOTE: customers have reported difficulties in communicating with this company and therefore delyas in collections.  

How?

DID YOU KNOW?

  • Mattresses have a life span of 7 years and so it is recommended you renew your mattress every 8 years.
  • On average we lose 285ml of fluid each night and shed 454g of dead skin cells a year.
  • Leaving your bed unmade may actually be healthier. A study by Kingston University found that leaving sheets and mattresses exposed to the air and sunlight helps to dry out the environment which houses mites.

Measuring Tapes

RE-USE

Mechanic's Tools

RE-USE

See Tools

Medical Waste

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

Medication

REDUCE

Yes medication can be reduced.

REDUCE
Please follow these guidelines supplied by Medecine Waste UK;

  • Please let your GP or Pharmacist know if you’ve stopped taking any of your medicines
  • Check what medicines you still have at home before re-ordering
  • Discuss your medication with your GP or Pharmacist on a regular basis
  • Think carefully before ticking all the boxes on your repeat prescription forms and only tick those you really need
  • If you don’t need the medicine please don’t order it! If you need the medicine in the future you can still request it.
  • If you need to go into hospital, please remember to take all your medicines with you in a clearly marked bag.
  • Please also remember that your medicines are prescribed only for you; it’s not safe to share them with anyone else.

RECYCLING?

  • Medication can not be recycled. The World Health Organisation (WHO) do not support medicine waste ‘recycling’ because of questions relating not only to safety but also appropriateness and cost effectiveness.
  • Pharmacies are obliged to accept unwanted medicines back from patients but they cannot be reissued to other patients. The reason for this is that once the medicine has left the pharmacy, storage conditions cannot be guaranteed. Some medicines are sensitive to heat, light or moisture and can become less effective if not stored properly. It is also not possible to guarantee the quality of medicines on physical inspection alone.

DID YOU KNOW?

  • Unused prescription medicines cost the NHS in the UK an estimated £300million every year. That could pay for;
     
    • 80,906 MORE hip replacements*
    • 101,351 MORE knee replacements*
    • 19,799 MORE drug treatment courses for breast cancer*
    • 11,778 MORE community nurses*
    • 300,000 MORE drug treatment courses for Alzheimer's*

Medicine Packs

Yes medicine packs can be recycled. The scheme is run by Terracycle and sponsored by Buscopan, Dulcolax and DulcoEase.

Please see the interactive map to locate your nearest public drop-off location to recycle any empty medicine blister packets by entering your postcode in the search bar.

Medicines

RE-USE

Memory Cards

Mercury

see Chemicals

Metal

RECYCLE

Metal Lids

Yes metal lids can be recycled.

RECYCLED
Where?

  • The Green Centre at Brighton Open Market. More details here. We can accept all metal lids including lids from glass jars, wine bottles and beer bottles
  • You can include metal lids from JARS ONLY in your kerbside recycling. They can be included with your paper, cardboard, drinks cans, food tins, aerosols and plastic bottles.
  • You can take all your metal lids 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?

  • You can recycle ALL metal lids with the Green Centre including;
    • Jar lids
    • Wine bottle metal lids
    • Beer bottle metal lids
  • You can only recycle JAR LIDS ONLY in your kerbside recycling collection.
  • You can recycle ALL metal lids at the Household Waste & Recycling sites in Brighton and Hove. Please include them in the scrap metal skip.

Metalwork Tools

RE-USE

See Tools

Microwaves

RECYCLE

Milk Bottle Tops (Plastic) in Brighton

RECYCLE

Yes plastic milk bottle tops can be recycled.

RECYCLED
Where?

  • Milk bottle tops can be recycled locally here in Brighton & Hove. The council will accept the lids INSIDE the plastic milk bottle.

How?

  • Milk bottle lids must contain no silver tabs inside the lid or paper stickers on the top.
  • Put the lid INSIDE the plastic bottle because the thread is too weak to keep the lid on the bottle once it goes through the recycling process.

Milk Bottle Tops (Plastic) outside Brighton

RECYCLE

There is currently only one plastic milk bottle top recycling scheme in the UK that we are aware of. This scheme is run by GHS Recycling based in Portsmouth. They collect bottle tops from charities and community organisations throughout the South East of England. Please call GHS on 02392 670399 to find out if there is a collector near you.

Rest of England - bottle tops have very little monetary value; 6p per kilo or 40 - 60p per black bin bag (approx 7 to 10kg) or £60 a tonne. 

It is not economically viable for you to collect bottle tops for charity unless you are living in the South East of England. 

If you want to raise funds for charity here are some tips;

  • Aluminium foil - 40p per kilo (rate changes daily)
  • Aluminium cans - 50p per kilo (rate changes daily)
  • Stainless steel - 50p per kilo (rate changes daily)
  • Electrical cable - 80p - £1.00 per kilo (rate changes daily)
  • Brass - £1.00 + per kilo (rate changes daily)
  • Copper - £1.50 + per kilo (rate changes daily)

Pay a visit to your local scrap yard and find out more about recycling scrap metal

Mirrors

Yes mirrors can be reused but they cannot be recycled.

REUSE

  • 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.

RECYCLED
Where?

  • Mirrors cannot be recycled. Please include them in your general waste.
  • 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 and include them in General Waste. See here for exact locations and opening times. For more details contact City Clean on 01273 292929.

Mobile Phones

RE-USE RECYCLE

Yes mobile phones can be recycled.

RECYCLED
Where?

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

How?

  • We accept any brand of mobile phone, working or not.

DID YOU KNOW?

  • Most schemes recover and re-use various parts from phones and their accessories. Phone recyclers salvage many useful materials from old mobile phones;

    • Separate metals recovery (including precious and semiprecious metals): The mobile parts are ground up and useful metal content extracted. Metal can be extracted from batteries too.
    • For every 1 million mobiles recycled, 35,724lbs of copper, 772lbs of silver and 75lbs of gold can be recovered.
    • Plastic recovery: energy-from-incineration is used to recover plastic from components. Outer body plastic may be granulated and reformulated for use in mouldings.
    • Recovery and downgrading of valuable components: e.g. flash memory devices.
    • Re-use of parts: Useful parts include aerials, battery connectors, PCBs (printed circuit boards), connectors including gold-coated edge contacts on PCBs, ICs (integrated circuits), keyboards, LCD screens, lenses, microphones, phone housings, screws, SIM card assemblies and speakers.
    • Many manufacturers have signed up to the Basel Convention agreeing to cooperate with developing environmentally sound management to end-of-life mobile phones.