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Glen Minikin<\/p>\nLindsey Prosser,BBC North West Tonight and <\/p>\n
Jenny Coleman,North West<\/p>\n
Glen Minikin<\/p>\n
Tommy was named Britain’s top ‘binfluencer’ by waste management firm Biffa<\/p>\n
A boy who has been named “Britain’s top binfluencer” has said his family’s recycling effort “helps the planet but also saves us loads of money”.<\/p>\n
Tommy, from Bury in Greater Manchester, has been given the title by waste management and recycling firm Biffa for helping his mum and dad drastically cut down their household waste.<\/p>\n
The 13-year-old said he likes “seeing the bins getting filled up and also knowing that we don’t waste anything” after encouraging his family to switch from disposable to reusable everyday items.<\/p>\n
His mum Gemma said: “We’ve saved thousands since we started recycling six years ago, it all adds up.”<\/p>\n
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Tommy and Gemma say the family recycle almost everything<\/p>\n
Tommy encouraged his parents to move to reusable everyday items including cloths, food bags and wet wipes.<\/p>\n
Artist Gemma, 42, and her husband Chris, 44, now have three waste bins in every room for paper, non-recyclables, bottles and cans, while in the kitchen, they have an extra one for flexible plastics.<\/p>\n
Gemma said she had been amazed by how much money the family had saved by making some simple swaps.<\/p>\n
She said: “I’ve stopped using kitchen roll and replaced it with reusable kitchen roll that you wash. I’ve swapped a disposable mop for washable mop pads.<\/p>\n
“Instead of cling film I use stretchy covers and kitchen foil has gone and instead I use washable silicone sheets.”<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
The family have a series of bins in the house to separate items for recycling<\/p>\n
The family also use reusable food bags and washable make-up remover pads.<\/p>\n
“We also use biodegradable toothbrushes, tooth flossers, earbuds and have a bio bin upstairs,” Gemma said.<\/p>\n
As a result of their recycling efforts, she said their general waste bin can last up to 12 weeks before it needs to be emptied.<\/p>\n
For anything that cannot be recycled from home, the family take it elsewhere.<\/p>\n
This includes flexible plastic and batteries to supermarket recycling facilities, and old clothes, electronics, and old pens are taken to high street shops which run recycling schemes.<\/p>\n
“Only dog poo and the occasional wet wipes go in the general waste bin, in biodegradable bags,” she said.<\/p>\n
Tommy added: “It’s fun to be able to recycle. I like seeing the bins getting filled up and also knowing that we don’t waste anything.”<\/p>\n
Georgia Gibson, Biffa’s Social Value Manager in Manchester, said it was “wonderful to see Tommy and his family inspiring people to waste less and recycle more”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lindsey Prosser,BBC North West Tonight and Jenny Coleman,North West Glen Minikin Tommy was named Britain’s top ‘binfluencer’ by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-260563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}