It is National Recycling Week and the stores are working hard to encourage customers to reuse, upcycle and buy second hand.

One of those is Oxfam and if you donate a piece of M&S clothing to the shop in the centre of Frome uou can get a voucher for £5 off a £35 spend on clothing, home and beauty products.

Simply take a piece of M&S clothing into your local Oxfam, where you'll get the voucher valid for one calendar month. M&S says you'll get one for every donation you make which includes at least one item of its clothing. The clothes can't be damaged or 'soiled', and you can't donate swimwear, underwear or socks (though bras are fine). For more info, see 'How can I get a £5 M&S voucher from Oxfam?'

Boots is also pushing recycling launching a new bathroom recycler bag, designed to be hung on the back of bathroom doors to collect empty products conveniently.

Did you know that common bathroom items, such as travel minis cannot be recycled in regular kerbside recycling? 

Research shows that while we recycle around 90% of kitchen packaging, that drops to just 50% in the bathroom[1], so during National Recycle Week, Boots will offer customers who buy three or more toiletries on boots.com a free sustainable bathroom recycler bag which makes it easier and simpler to recycle in the bathroom. 

Boots also provides its industry leading 'Recycle at Boots' scheme, offering over 700 handy drop off points in stores across the UK, through which it has helped its customers recycle over one million hard to-recycle products into useful composite construction board materials which otherwise would have ended up in landfill.

Top items regularly dropped off include toothpaste, handwash, face serums and mascara. The scheme welcomes drop offs from any brand and customers are also rewarded for their recycling with 500 Boots Advantage Card points for every five products that are recycled when they spend £10 in store.

John Sweeney, Head of Product Sustainability at Boots, said: "Our customers care about their impact on the environment, and are actively looking to businesses to help them become more sustainable in their everyday lives. The bathroom is an area where we can make real improvements to our habits to be more sustainable. For example, many bathrooms just have the one bin, and everything in it goes into your general waste bin outside. A simple tip is to pop a bag into your bathroom that can be used to collect your empty toiletries and health and beauty products – these can then be emptied into your kerbside recycling collection, or any smaller hard-to-recycle items can be dropped at one of the Recycle at Boots drop off points."