Recycle More Southfields: your recycling questions​ answered

First published in the SGRA Newsletter in spring 2025.

Q: Can I recycle trigger spray bottle mechanisms and pumps?

A: Yes, as long as they are attached to the plastic bottles. But it is best to reuse them, by refilling the bottles.

There are many brands available that offer household cleaner refills. Our favourites are:

NeatClean has concentrated refill bottles of both bathroom and kitchen cleaners. Packaged in small plastic bottles. These can be bought in the supermarkets (Sainsbury’s and Waitrose stock them) as well as online. Cif also does refills, but they only work with the Cif original bottles.

Ocean Saver and Homethings have a variety of refill products: from concentrates to dilutable tablets for most cleaning needs. These are 100% plastic free. Online and refill shops only. There are many, many more!

You can also refill your home cleaning and personal hygiene bottles At St Michael’s Church Café (71 Wimbledon park Rd, SW18 5TT), which has a refill station.

Q: Can I recycle my plastic toothbrushes and/or electric toothbrush heads?

A: Yes, you can with us.

We are accepting both of these in our hard-to-recycle waste collections, but we have to pay for these through the TerreCycle bags scheme. They are no longer part of any free recycling programmes,

Try these instead:

Buy bamboo manual toothbrushes and interdental products instead: TruthBrush, The Humble Co, Georganics make a great selection of bamboo/no plastic products (mainly sold online).

More mainstream brands such as Colgate and Wisdom make them too – those are often available in Boots and bigger supermarkets.

For the electric toothbrush heads our members recommend using Brushd or Booheads – those can be recycled with the manufacturers.

Q: Can I recycle soft plastics – such as crisps and snacks, bubble wrap, petfood pouches, yoghurt and soft fruit lids, etc?

A: Yes! Pretty much all (clean and dry!!!) soft plastics are accepted in most supermarkets.

Locally to the Grid you can recycle them at M&S Southfields and Coop in Wimbledon Park, as well as the large Sainsbury’s in Southside.

Have a recycling question?

Follow us on Instagram @recyclemore_southfields and on Facebook @RecycleMore Southfields and get in touch on: recyclemoresouthfields@gmail.com.

5 Great Products from Recycled Materials

It’s recycling week in the UK! Who knew? At Recycle More Southfields, this is a great week to think about how we can do even more to reduce waste and protect the environment.

Say no to plastic

We love cutting down on single-use plastic by recycling. But we won’t solve the single-use plastics problem by recycling alone: there is still too much produced and not enough that is properly recycled.

More drastic action is needed. So, please join us in signing a petition for the Global Plastics Treaty to cut the use of single-use plastics produced in the first place. Find out more from Everyday Plastics and sign their petition.

Choose recycled products

So here are our favourite products made from all things recycled. Most are tried-and-tested by local recyclers and simply gorgeous!

1. From pre-loved saris to Christmas wreaths

Pri Pri is an international circular economy company, which turns pre-loved saris sourced from the owner’s personal contacts and markets in Mumbai, into new items such as kids clothing, homeware items, and (our favourite!) Christmas wreaths! All designed and stitched in the UK!

The wreaths are made from all the scraps of material left over after making other upcycled items.

(Image above courtesy of PriPri).

2. From abandoned fishing nets to stylish sunglasses and more

Waterhaul is a UK based company that turns lost fishing gear, collected from the beaches of Cornwall into chic sunglasses and (just as exciting to many of us…) litter picking equipment.

Fishing nets are especially dangerous to the wildlife due to their abundance, strength and longevity.

Recycle More Soutfields has purchased 4 litter pickers and 2 litter picking hoops from Waterhaul and we lend them to local residents to encourage litter picking. They look good and make us feel better about all that repurposed plastic.

If you want to borrow these from us (free of charge!) – please get in touch by emailing: recyclemoresouthfields (at) gmail.com

3. From books and office paper to loo rolls

Instead of flushing loo paper made from virgin cellulose down the toilet, you can get toilet paper that reuses post-consumer wastepaper, such as textbooks, workbooks and office paper. Look out for the “recycled” paper made from the post-industrial paper (such as the off cuts of the paper industry) – that can be used for things like office paper or books.

The most sustainable brands for recycled toilet rolls are: Honest Suppliers, Naked Sprout and Who Gives a Crap.

More information on eco-friendly toilet rolls, including a discussion about bamboo vs recycled, listen to BBC Radio 4 Sliced Bread Programme. (Image above courtesy of Honest Suppliers).

4. Recycled stationery

We love to have less plastic waste in the first place and our stationery cupboard is another place to work on.

Always choose recycled paper for your printing needs – plenty of it is available online and in shops. You can substitute your plastic sticky tape with a paper one. Even Sellotape, a huge British brand that became synonymous with sticky tape now produces a paper alternative. But if you want to go a step further – get paper sticky tape, made from recycled paper! That’s doubly sustainable and available from a small, but passionate UK online retailer called Anything But Plastic.

We’ve even found pens made from recycled plastic bottles – see Make a Mark Recycled pens. We haven’t used them ourselves yet, but let us know if you’ve tried them.

5. From plastic junk to stylish soap dishes

Müll Club (of Dragon Den fame) collects plastic waste from its local community and makes beautiful recycled plastic items, such as gorgeous soap dishes. We are a little bit in love with them…. As much as we like to avoid plastics, bamboo/wooden soap dishes get covered with mould, while these remain clean for a very long time!

(Image above - a screengrab from the Mull Club website)

We’d love to hear about your recycling favourites.

6 Easy Ways to Live Sustainably in Southfields

It’s Sustainable September in Wandsworth, so here is a Recycle More Southfields list of six ways to live sustainably, that are right on our doorstep.

1. Borrow items from the Library of Things in Southside Shopping Centre

Pros: affordable, easy to borrow and no need to store them at home

Cons: Occasionally you may need to wait for an item if it’s on loan

You can borrow everything from steam cleaners to tents, extendable ladders to projectors, tile cutters to circular saws, sewing machines to strimmers.

The process is very easy to follow.

The Library of Things Wandsworth has the same opening hours as Southside Centre. Located opposite Waterstones.

2. Mend, fix and repair your items with Southfields Mend, Fix and Repair Cafe

Pros: extend the life of your things for a small donation

Cons: Southfields Mend, Fix and Repair Café only takes place a few time a year

Bring your broken or faulty things to Southfields Mend, Fix and Repair café and for a small donation a group of local volunteers will try to fix them for you!

The most recent Southfields Mend, Fix and repair Café took take place during Southfields Harvest Festival at St Barnabas Church on Sat 28 September. Subscribe to their social media, to see when the next one will take place.

You can bring small household items, electricals, clothes, bikes and more.

One item per person.

Insta: @southfields_mend_fix_repair

3. Refill your beauty and cleaning products at St Michael’s Church Café and Refill station

Pros: close by in Southfields and you can get a cup of coffee at St Michael’s Café while you are there.

Cons: more expensive, compared to the usual brands.

The Refill station has: shampoo, body and hand wash, washing up liquid, laundry liquid, all-purpose cleaner refill.

Monday to Thursday 8:30am - 5pm

Friday 8:30am - 2pm

Saturday 9am - 12pm

4. Recycle your small electricals

Pros: very easy to recycle – Wandsworth residents can recycle old toasters, hairdryers or other small electricals at kerbside on your recycling day. Southfields and Wandsworth libraries now also have a pink bin for these too.

Cons: none

You no longer need to take your small electrical items to the local tip for recycling. You can recycle them outside your front door: just put your small electricals on top of your closed black bin (though we found this scheme is experiencing some teething problems and not all items are routinely picked up). Better still, pink small electricals bins are now available throughout the borough. Our closest one is at Southfields Library.

Kerbside guideline is here.

Pink small electricals recycling bins guide.

5. Get rid of your hazardous waste properly

Pros: throwing away hazardous waste like paints and solvents in a responsible way. Free.

Cons: need to fill in a form – but it’s a small price to pay for doing the right thing.

The City of London Hazardous waste collection is a free collection service for residents, covering most London boroughs. Follow these easy steps:

• Gather your hazardous waste, such as paints, solvents, garden sprays.

• Fill in a form (you will need your Council Tax number!)

• Put it all in a box.

• Waste Collectors will contact you with the collection date.

• Leave it by your front door on that day.

You can arrange up to 4 such collections a year.

Link to the City of London Hazardous waste collection.

6. Join your local library

Pros: free books

Cons: none

You can borrow up to 15 book to read. Children don’t get late returns fines. And you can renew online!

Joining a library saves you from taking a risk on a book, buying it and feeling bad if you didn’t like it. It also supports this vital service. The library’s performance is primarily evaluated on the number of books being borrowed. So, use it or lose it.!

Library staff are extremely knowledgeable and fantastic at recommending books to read. Libraries are also an important social role of community hubs.

Reading Allowed by Chris Paling is a great book about libraries. Highly recommend. (We borrowed it from Southfields Library).