It’s incredible how much of our waste goes straight to landfill, taking hundreds of years to break down. Using just a few simple ideas, you can save money and massively reduce the amount of waste you send to landfill.

If you have some stuff that you want to get rid of, consider if your stuff can be reused without being thrown away.  If your stuff still has value, you can always sell your stuff on eBay, put a notice on the work message board, or just sell it at car boot sales or garage sales.  If you don’t want any money for your stuff, you can always give it away to charity shops or post it on a freecycle forum.  You can also pass on your unwanted items to your friends and family.

On the other hand, you can always buy 2nd hand where possible. You can look on freecycle for items or ask around with your friends and family to find out if they are looking to get rid of something you want.

Recycling your stuff is only one step you can take to reduce landfill waste.  You can also reduce your waste by considering what products you are buying and the packaging that they use. You can buy products that only use recyclable packaging such as glass, certain plastics, paper, card, etc. If you buy in bulk, you can typically save on packaging compared to lots of smaller items. If possible, you might be able to use your own containers to get re-fills for products, such as egg boxes.

Quite a few products have far too much packaging or have packaging that has long been non-recyclable, such as yoghurt pots, shampoo bottles and tetra packs (milk or juice cartons). If you feel particularly passionate about it, you can always write to product groups and encourage them to try harder with their packaging to make it more recyclable.

With some creative thinking an initiative, you can re-use packaging to increase the number of times it’s used before being discarded. For example, using plastic bottles to protect garden plants from slugs and snails. Perhaps using old CDs on a line of string to scare off birds from your vegetable patch. Using old glass jars or plastic containers as food storers or for other bits and pieces around the house. You can even use cleaned out yoghurt pots as plant pots for seedlings.

Reducing waste isn’t just about recycling stuff, it’s about re-use too!

This post was written by Daniel Harrison, who loves green gadgets and has his own blog where you can receive more daily eco tips just like this one.