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Recycle Week 2020 Will Thank the Nation for its Efforts

The theme for Recycle Week 2020 will be ‘Together – We Recycle,’ and it will thank the nation for keeping up its recycling efforts despite the challenges we’ve all faced during the coronavirus pandemic.

Recycle Week is organised by WRAP and the event is planned for 21^st-27^th September. Some big names have already lent their support to the initiative, including Sainsbury’s, Ocado, Co-op, Britvic, Highland Spring, Unilever UK and Ireland, Lucozade Ribena Suntory, and Danone.

Recycle Now’s campaign manager, Craig Stephens acknowledged the public’s recycling efforts and the hard work of refuse and recycling teams who have kept vital services running during the pandemic.

He commented that people have continued to recycle even during the pandemic, and the fact that we’ve all been shopping online more has led to a big increase in cardboard recycling. He added that recycling workers have kept going even when the world came to a halt, and Recycle Week 2020 is going to recognise that.

Creative Ways to Recycle Cardboard

If you’ve bought more things online during lockdown than you care to admit, you might have a stockpile of cardboard boxes that you need to get rid of. Yes, you can put them in the recycling of course, but what about reusing them as well?

Cardboard is such a versatile and sturdy material and it can be reused in so many ways.

Make a playhouse for the kids

If you have a big enough box, you can create a little playhouse for the kids. You can cut out some ‘windows,’ let them decorate it, and they’ll have hours of fun using their imaginations instead of being sat in front of a screen all day.

Another option for smaller boxes would be to make a doll’s house or a mini garage, the possibilities are endless! This is a great activity for those inevitable rainy days.

Turn them into storage

This might seem like an obvious idea, but who doesn’t need more storage at home? Are you fed up with trying to untangle cables and wires that have been dumped in THAT drawer? Storing items neatly in a designated cardboard box can spare you the frustration. If you have a cardboard box with dividers, like the ones that house wine or beer bottles, you can use them to organise and safely store fragile things like ornaments.

Use them in the garden

If you’re a gardener, the chances are that you care about the environment too, so you probably already reuse and recycle. You’ll be happy to know that you can reuse cardboard boxes in your garden in several different ways. When you’re weeding, you can save your knees by kneeling on some cardboard, and you can also cover weeds with cardboard to stop them growing.

It’s also a great insulator that you can use to protect plants from sharp frosts in the winter months. Cover the cardboard with some mulch or leaves and as it decomposes, it will boost the quality of the soil, all ready for planting in spring.

Make a pet playhouse

Smaller pets like hamsters will have a whale of a time scurrying through cardboard tubes and around a cardboard box playhouse or maze. The same goes for rabbits. Just use several cardboard boxes and tubes to construct a little run and playhouse to keep them entertained and active.

Use them as drawer dividers

If like many of us, you’ve indulged in beer or wine during the lockdown and you have a box with those cardboard dividers in, you can use them to organise some of the drawers in your house. Whether you want to keep your sock drawer tidy or organise the bits and pieces in your desk, they can come in really handy.

We hope we’ve given you some inspiration on how to recycle or reuse those cardboard boxes that are piling up from your Amazon purchases. Keep up the good work!