Bin liners

What you can do

Choosing to refuse plastic bin liners. That includes ‘reusing’ plastic bags, because unfortunately they end up in landfill as well.

How can you do it

There are some great alternatives to plastic bin liners and bags, including:

• Lining the bin with a few sheets of newspaper, flyers or scrap paper.
• Using the bin as a ‘naked bin’, and simply washing it out as needed.

If you do use a ‘naked bin’, you can ward against extra smells by:

• Wrapping the “icky” stuff in newspaper/scrap paper first.
• Freezing ‘wet’ scraps (in paper or a reusable container) until bin day.
• Home composting food scraps.

Taking the next steps

To lessen the need for bin liners altogether, consider aiming for as little waste as possible. Many people start by avoiding plastic packaging, reusing items, and composting to reduce rubbish as much as possible.

For those who are able to, having some pet chickens could be a good solution too. They’ll eat most food scraps.

Many local councils also hold Compost, Bokashi, Worm Farm or Chicken Workshops which are worthwhile heading along to. If yours doesn’t? Ask them why not!

The impact

• Plastic bags break up into micro pieces that easily blow into nature and, if mistaken for food and ingested, can be fatal to animals.
• Plastic remains forever in landfill, and reducing the use of plastic bin liners helps counteract this.
• Composting helps food scraps deteriorate instead of producing methane from anaerobic landfill.