Quick and easy ways to go green

• paper
• cardboard
• plastic bottles
• tins and cans
• aerosols

The most common offenders are plastics that aren’t bottle-shaped. If you cannot take your non-bottle plastics to a recycling point, it is best to put them in your rubbish at home.

Food, glass, liquids, and nappies can make paper and cardboard unrecyclable. Learn more about recycling in Portsmouth

Did you know that just one minute of engine idling creates 150 balloons worth of harmful emissions? This makes the air we breathe less clean, so by turning your engine off when you’re stopped, you can make a real difference to everyone’s air quality.

For items that can’t be recycled from your doorstep, there are more than 200 bring banks across Portsmouth, which take:

• plastic pots, tubs and trays
• cartons (e.g. Tetrapaks)
• glass bottles and jars
• textiles
• books, DVDs, and CDs

Find your nearest recycling point

Help make Portsmouth a greener city by volunteering your time to community groups this spring. There are lots of opportunities to get involved – from planting trees and cleaning beaches to designing websites and researching for eco-projects. Find opportunities at hiveportsmouth.com by putting “environment” in the “interests” search box.

Nothing beats the taste of fresh fruit, vegetables, and herbs you’ve grown yourself, or the satisfaction and enjoyment you can get from producing them. If you have a garden, spring is the ideal time to start growing your own fruit and veg. Springtime is when you can plant or sow seed for many crops. If you don’t have a garden, you may have space for pots and containers. You can even grow salad ingredients and herbs on a windowsill.

• The Repair Café runs free sessions regularly to help people fix, not ditch. With the help of their friendly volunteers, you can repair your things over a cuppa, cake and natter. If you can carry it and it’s not alive, they’ll take a look – be it electricals, clothes, toys, jewellery, furniture, rusty tools, and more. Just make sure you book your slot, and if you can, help them out with a donation so they can run more session in the future.
• The Portsmouth Library of Things is a community library with items for your home, projects and organisations to help you borrow rather than buy. You can borrow items that you use only every once in a while, so you don’t need to own – saving you money, space and carbon.