Buying recycled products

People in the UK throw away rubbish fast enough to fill the Albert Hall every two hours. Buying recycled products means less rubbish ends up in landfill sites and fewer valuable natural resources get wasted. Buying recycled doesn’t mean having to skimp on quality either.

Finding recycled products on the high street

Around four in 10 people in the UK say that they often buy second-hand goods. The most common recycled product is paper – you can find recycled toilet rolls, kitchen rolls, envelopes and packing materials, as well as printer, copier and writing paper.

Many manufacturers are now using recycled materials in their packaging too, for example plastic you’ve recycled can get used again for plastic bottles and food containers. There are a few labelling schemes that can help if you’re looking for recycled materials in your shopping:

the Mobius Loop symbol with a percentage inside the loop shows that a product contains that percentage of recycled material
for paper and board, the NAPM (National Association of Paper Merchants) Recycled Mark indicates that the product is made from at least 50 per cent genuine recovered fibre
More on recycling and packaging labels
More information about the NAPM Recycled logo

Buy recycled products from specialist shops or websites

There’s a surprisingly wide range of products made of recycled materials, including:

newspapers
clothing, including fleeces made of recycled plastic
glassware
furniture
play materials
tiles and bathroom fittings

Recycle what you’ve finished with

Manufacturers that use recycled materials can only do so if everyone else does their bit by recycling what they buy and use. You’d be surprised what can be recycled.

The wider issue

Recycling is important because it reduces the huge amounts of waste that are generated every year and then have to be disposed of - usually in landfill sites or through incineration - and the energy which is wasted when processed or hard-to-extract materials are discarded.

For the recycling industry to be able to work there has to be a market for recycled materials. By buying recycled products you are closing the loop and ensuring that these valuable materials don’t go to waste.