Unwanted medicines

Medicines and health

You can take unused medicines, prescription or otherwise, and empty inhalers back to your local pharmacy, like Boots. Incidentally this applies to all unused medicines, including tablets or liquids. Do not be tempted to flush them down the loo!

Your local chemist, including all Boots pharmacies, are obliged to accept back unwanted medicines from patients.

If you have empty blister packs that contained medical tablets, these can be recycled in your blue top kerbside bin in the same way as all foil containers. Please do check the blister packs are empty.

Boots also take and recycle contact lenses.

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Acrylic paint

Acrylic is a form of plastic, so we do need to be aware of how we dispose of it. To reduce anything getting into the water system I have been advised that before you wash out your brushes, you wipe them off first with paper - old newspaper will do - to remove as much paint as possible and put the paper into your black top rubbish bin. This is better than using an old cloth as the cloth cannot be put in your black top bin.

This way, the absolute minimum amount of plastic will enter the water system from your sink when you do wash your brushes! The way our water is processed means that it can cope with these small amounts.

Can you also make sure that any paint left on your palette is also disposed of into your black top bin. When your palette is dry do peel off as much as you can and this can also be wrapped in paper and disposed of into your black top bin.

Regarding the acrylic plastic you put into your black bin, do not despair. In West Sussex, we do recycle your black top bin contents and we extract all the plastic and paper, including your acrylic paint, and we turn it into Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF). These are fuel pellets that are then are sold to industry as industrial fuel.

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Till receipts

Up to about four or so years ago, till receipts were printed on special paper and were not able to be recycled. Remember when till receipts were on shiny paper?

Thanks to the pressure to recycle, supermarkets and other retailers changed to printing on ordinary paper so now all till receipts can be recycled. Also, the smallest supermarket till receipt has been designed so that it is large enough to be recycled, in case you ever wondered why you get such a big piece of paper when buying one item!

This has now become a good approximate measure. If a piece of paper or cardboard is smaller than a supermarket till receipt for one item, then it is too small to be recycled and should be treated like shredded paper and put into your black top rubbish kerbside bin. Use this as a size guide to what paper and cardboard can go into your blue top kerbside recycling bin.

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Reducing black bin waste

Recycling as many products and items in our blue top bins isn’t the only solution to waste management. Keeping the amount we throw in our black top bins to a minimum can go a long way too.

• Rather than wipes, you can use small, washable face cloths

• When shopping, pay attention to use by dates - keeping food waste to a minimum

• Replace cling film and invest in a pack of reusable plastic covers

• Face masks are now a part of our lives, so washable masks are a great investment

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