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Now is a great time of year to have a clear out. How about freeing space in your spare room or make it easier to get the barbecue in and out? Reusing unwanted items is even better for the environment than recycling them, and could be a great find for somebody else, so why not try one of these ways to reuse more?

Melton and District Furniture Project collects unwanted, good quality furniture, electrical items and bric-a-brac. These are then available to the public at low prices. Their web site has further information.

Freeuse and Freecycle are both online services for donating and receiving usable household items locally. Items can be of any size and value and no money changes hands. The person who receives an item should expect to collect it.

Regular car boot sales take place within Melton Borough in Bottesford and in Melton Mowbray.

There are several charity shops in Melton Mowbray town centre. Items donated should be in a reasonable state and most shops will recycle any items they can not sell.

Summer is hotting up and with another bank holiday on the way, we know plenty of you will be busy in the garden. Last year we collected around 6,000 tonnes of waste from gardens in Melton to be composted. The grass cuttings, hedge trimmings and other garden waste are perfect for turning into a rich compost at the farm site in Melton Borough.

Please remember to keep soil, big stones and branches thicker than your thumb out of the brown bins, and any other non-compostable waste such as general rubbish should never be put in the brown bins. We also cannot take food of any sort in the brown bins.

However this does not mean that you have to put food waste in your black bin instead, and you can also recycle most of the goodness in your garden by composting it yourself. The County Council offers compost bins at reduced prices and you can get more information by following this link.

You can really make the most of your garden this summer by making the most of your garden waste.

As our year draws to an end at the end of March, it looks likely that again around half of all waste collected from your doorsteps will be either recycled or composted. Total waste has gone down, but so has the amount that is recycled.

Whilst many of us are now comfortable with the collection scheme, many others are still throwing most recycleable waste into the black bins along with plenty of food waste and plastic bags. Please visit Melton Borough Council’s web site or call (01664) 502502 to find out all the materials you can recycle and how to cut down on the amount being thrown away.

A typical resident of Melton cuts 4% off their domestic carbon footprint by recycling. A dedicated green resident who recycles and composts everything possible could achieve a saving of over 9%, and this can be reduced even further by cutting down on the items and packaging we consume.

Across Melton Borough we are already saving almost 6,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year by recycling and composting rather than landfilling all our waste, and this saving could be almost doubled.

Of course Verdant has a role to play as the company that collects your waste. We are continually looking at the ways we work and using the latest technologies to lower the impact we are having. Watch this space for more news on the progress we’re making, and carry on recycling.

If you are struggling to deal with waste from your home and haven’t really got to grips with recycling, follow this link to see how you can put your bin on a diet in 4 steps.

Using your recycling boxes is just one step among many that we can all take to deal with the problem of waste. Other ways include using charity shops, reusing carrier bags and composting in your own garden. Further information is available on the Melton Borough Council web site, or even more is on the web site of WRAP, an organisation that advises on reducing waste.