The natural aroma of woven seagrass storage baskets can bring a subtly pleasant smell to the air – always welcome in hard-working kitchen or laundry spaces. An open basket can be used for everyday clean recyclables, such as paper and card, and doesn’t compromise on looks.
(Picture: living4media/Möller, Cecilia)We all know the importance of recycling our waste at home, but sometimes all those separate bins and containers can cause storage and aesthetic headaches.
So for the sake of both design appeal and planetary well-being, set up a system that works for you and helps you feel good about what you’re doing, rather than gets you flustered over what goes where.
You can buy various freestanding and drawer-insert bins that are specially designed to help with separating recycling, but you needn’t be restricted to ugly plastic boxes.
Woven seagrass baskets feel far more homely: try placing a few side by side in a corner or under a console table – for ease, you could use a mix of open and lidded baskets, depending on what you’re storing.
If family members get confused over what goes where, stick a ‘crib sheet’ inside a kitchen cupboard door, or simply tie a luggage tag to each box or bag stating what goes in it.
Consider setting up smaller storage containers for ‘take-back’ items, such as used batteries, single-use carrier bags, LED lightbulbs and plastic film. Such products generally aren’t included in household recycling but can be returned elsewhere, such as larger supermarkets or your local household waste and recycling centre.
Food waste should be a firm fixture in your recycling area, too; yes, it will eventually decompose with non-recyclable rubbish, but when placed into normal landfill, the lack of oxygen causes it to release methane, which is far more potent than carbon dioxide.
In an ideal world, we’d all have the outdoor space and time to cultivate our own compost bins; if that’s not an option yet but your local authority will collect food waste, or your municipality has a communal compost area, shop around for a compact metal caddy that looks good enough to keep in full view on a countertop, and add a sprinkling of bicarbonate of soda and a few drops of essential oil to the bottom to minimise nasty whiffs.
If you don’t have the space even for that, consider keeping a bag in the freezer and adding waste to it as you go; when it’s full, simply transfer it to an outdoor food-waste bin or compost heap.
- Images and text taken from The New Mindful Home: And How To Make It Yours by Joanna Thornhill, published by Lawrence King. Priced £14.99.
