Decluttering: Thank you Suffolk for making it easy to recycle hard plastic

I have to confess that my decluttering antics have not been going great this last week, partly because I've fallen into the zone of despair wondering where else to tackle first. And it's also been a mixed week with my youngest being off school poorly with an unknown allergy rash. While he insists that he's allergic to potatoes, I've spent my time looking after him and balancing all the other things that need doing such as washing pants and having the odd peek into Twitter.

So can you imagine my delight whenI saw a very distracting tweet from @SuffolkHWRC that said [sic]"Hard plastic recycling is now avalible at Hadleigh, Mildenhall & Felixstowe HWRC's".

Well that got me excited in a manner that had me immediately pondering a day out at Felixstowe beach...via a sightseeing visit to the recently upgraded Household Waste Recycling Centre. Poor Mr A, I could imagine the response.

"Here she goes again," he'd say in a less than enthusiastic manner.

But it would be worth it. We've got so many broken plastic toys that have been cluttering up the play shed in the garden that to have the opportunity to send them for recycling would free up a good amount of space.

They are old toys which were down-graded to garden play as soon as they had broken bits and were beyond repair. I couldn't bear the idea of them going to waste in landfill so retained them for a while longer instead. But during the last year, the writing has been on the wall. They're hardly played with anymore and it was time to reconsider their future. My first thought was to advertise them on Freecycle, but even with the group's reputation for saving stuff from landfill, I think a bag of dubious, broken, grit-filled toys may be stretching it somewhat.

There are enough broken toys in the world to share amongst those who find the need, so I think I will give this bag of stuff a new lease of life and take them along to the HWRC.

The good news is however, I discovered yesterday that these facilities are also in place at the HWRC in Bury St Edmunds, so I don't have to circumnavigate the system after all. Mr A will be pleased that he doesn't have to go on a recycling sight-seeing tour next time we're over on the coast.

In fact, when I told him last night about the new facilities at Bury St Edmunds, he gave me a huge grin and said "I know"!

Apparently, he saw the Hard Plastics sign when he was there last time.

Obviously he wasn't as excited as me, as that was weeks ago!

But with my new found knowledge I am now on a mission to go through the children's bedrooms as well as the garden and gather together all of those annoying bits of broken plastic toys. I've also got a few old grotty plastic plates that have seen better days too.

As far as I'm aware, hard plastics recycling facilities are far and few between in the UK, so it's great that this new opportunity has come to Suffolk. The services are operated by a company called Waste Recycling Group. So it's worth checking out their website, to see if they manage waste recovery at a centre near you. Who knows, you might have hard plastic recycling nearby too. Even if it's not available yet, it's always worth checking with your local recycling officer to see if such services are coming soon.

Alternatively, if you're passing through Suffolk, you could always drop them off at a participating recycling centre. Or would that be too cheeky?

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