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Have you visited your local recycling centre and watched in amazement as someone potters up in their 4x4, drives straight up to bin, tosses in couple of bottles and then drives off? Many "recyclers" seem to think they are doing their bit for the planet this way, and make dedicated trips to their centres and get rid of a few items each time. How much fuel have they wasted that way? Sure - they have cleaned out the house and appeased their conscience a little, but their impact is probably worse than if they had just thrown their bottles into the bin.

Key to any recycling scheme is REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE.

Recycling is the third string to your bow, and before you consider it you need to have worked through the other steps... buy less "stuff" you are going to throw away (and that includes packaging etc), and then consider who else might want the stuff you are planning to get rid of... clothes, shoes, books, exercise DVDs etc. Charity shops, E-bay and freecycle.org are great ways of getting rid of your old stuff - you have instantly reduced clutter and still not been to the recycling bank.

Many local authorities will now collect recyclable waste from the kerbside, and this too will reduce your trips to the centre, and it is much more efficient to have one council vehicle doing the work once a week or so. If your authority doesn't do it, start persuading them to.

Now you can make their job, and yours, easier by sorting your waste into categories. I use a stackable vegetable rack for this. In one bin goes paper, in another metal, another glass etc. Vegetable peelings are stuck in small bin with a lid and used in the compost bin.

Now on collection day I just take these bins down to the kerbside and Bob is my uncle - no more trips for me...

Well, not quite. My council won't accept cardboard or plastics. These I store up in separate bins and then only take them to the centre when I am heading that way for another purpose.

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