Recycle NOW with a little help from Recyclenow (recyclenow.com)

Member Name: anonymili

Product:	recyclenow.com
Date:	09/04/09 (250 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: a handy site with lots of useful tips on recycling

Disadvantages: some information listed on links from the site are a bit out of date

Recyclenow.com is a fabulous little website I found some time ago and one that I refer to often. I have in recent times become a bit obsessed with recycling both at home and at work. I work in a software development company and as such most of our correspondence with colleagues and suppliers is carried out via telephone or email. We try to minimise our use of printed matter as much as possible but this does not stop the deluge of junk mail we get on a daily basis.

I can't quite remember exactly how I came across the site but I'm ever so glad that I did as it helped feed my obsession with recycling and calm me down somewhat as it gave me some general and more complex ideas for recycling on top of what I already knew.

The site itself is rather basic. It won't win any awards for design or technical prowess BUT it is user-friendly which I feel is the most important thing for a site of this nature. If we want to do our bit towards saving the planet and to encourage each other to recycle as much as we practically can, this is a great place to start. The website has an easy on the eye white background with a lot of green headings and tabs - green is the obvious choice for the main colour on a recycling site, so a few brownie points there for going for the obvious!

On the home page one of the main links is "find out how to recycle your old electronics" and I felt this was definitely important enough to have as a mail link from the front page. How many of us just shove old electrical items to the back of the cupboard or wardrobe and forget about them when we buy new items, such as kettles, cameras, hairdryers, etc? There's a handy postcode locator link you can use to find the nearest recycling centre for your items and a tip from this page "If you are making a special journey to the recycling centre, remember to check around your home to see if there is anything else you want to take at the same time."

I really love the handy scroll bar at the bottom of the page with graphics of items such as drinks cans, aerosols, plastic bottles, batteries, etc, each of which you can click and arrive at another page to give you advice on recycling that particular type of item.

On the home page, you have 6 main tabs, which are "home", "What can I do today", "Why recycling matters", "News", "Fun Stuff" and "Home Composting". I've had a good browse though all of the tabs and as an example of a news item, I was interested to read an article about a "reverse vending machine" which is similar to a drinks dispenser which gives you 50p vouchers for every 100 drinks cans you feed it, launched by a bus company and and Aberdeenshire Council. So cheaper bus travel if you recycle? Can't be bad - I know it means having to store 100 empty drinks cans which can take up quite a bit of space but in my case this is something we recycle in the office as we supply free can drinks to our staff; so our can recycle box gets full up quite quickly. Then again, of course, this is referring to a pilot scheme in Aberdeen which is nowhere near where I live or work but is relevant to those who are in that area.

I'm not particularly fond of making or copying lists but thought I'd include some of the item areas listed on the site which have their own page. I found these very handy as some were items I'd previously not considered for recycling such as beverage cartons, furniture, bricks and rubble, carpets, egg shells, shoes, wrapping paper, engine oil, greetings cards, paint, etc. Not all of the items can actually be accepted for recycling, but where it's not possible, there are very practical ideas as to what to do with the items, such as bricks and rubble and paint. On some of these pages are links to other sites which are relevant to that particular form of recycling.

On the Fun Stuff tab you can watch TV adverts for the Recycle Now scheme. There's even a link to a page for recycler, the rapping robot, which kids will enjoy. What the heck, I even enjoyed it! "recycler" the rapping robot can be booked by schools to come and do presentations at schools. On this link http://www.recyclenow.com/fun_stuff/recycler/see_r ecycler_in.html you can even see him in action at a school! The kids seemed to adore him! I do think it's important to get children involved in recycling from as early an age as possible and this fun way to learn about it is definitely something that kids will learn from.

In the Home Composting section (my least favourite as I don't do any form of gardening) there are step by step processes to help you with composting and a question/answer section. You can enter your postcode to find somewhere to buy a low cost compost bin which is handy for those who don't particularly fancy spending a small fortune on one.

The site itself is very smooth in page transitions. I don't experience any lag when changing pages either when accessing from home or from work. The site is updated regularly as can be seen from the News tab with recycling news being updated regularly with each month having its own link. From the News pages, I gather that the site has been actively running since May 2008 as that's when the first new items are from.

The recyclenow.com site is owned and run by The Waste and Resources Action Programme. (WRAP). A helpline number is provided from a link at the bottom of each page which is 0845 331 3131 or you can complete an online form for someone to get in touch with you via email. The last option on the bottom right of each screen is the Sitemap from where you can easily access any of the pages in the site from one pages without graphics interfering with your view of the page.


As a site for giving members of the public handy advice on recycling, I'd give recyclenow.com a strong 8 out of 10. It loses points slightly because some of the information in a few links I've clicked has been out of date (but that was really due to the external site not having updated the info, as opposed to recyclenow.com quoting the incorrect information). I'd recommend you have a good browse of the site if you're even slightly interesting in increasing your recycling activities.


This review may appear on other consumer review sites under my same username.

Summary: a very handy site for those who want to do more recycling