Olympic legend Mark Foster on recycling at home

We’re a nation of real people, with busy lives.  While many of us are trying our best when it comes to recycling, it’s so easy to put things in the wrong bin.  But there’s still room to grow according to a new a study.

New public insights released by Recycle Now – part of climate action NGO, WRAP –shows that we are a nation of wish cyclers, with the vast majority of well-intentioned households trying to recycle items that should not go in the recycling bin, in an effort to ‘do their bit’. Contaminants affect the quality of the recycling, its value and in extreme cases mean that the recycling has to be disposed of rather than recycled.

Britons already save a gigantic 18 million tonnes of CO2 every year by recycling – the same environmental impact as taking 12 million cars off the road.  However, the research reveals that over four fifths (84%) of well-intentioned households are putting one or more ‘contaminator’ items in the recycling, when they actually can’t be recycled from home.

Ros spoke to Olympic swimming legend Mark Foster.