Well, rubber is in fact recyclable strictly speaking, but you would need an awful lot of them to make it worth anybody’s while. Some people may even say it’s compostable given that it is originally made from a natural product, but the processing it goes through to form it into products can make it very slow or even impossible to decompose.
The best advice therefore is to reuse them if you can!
The other option you have, especially if your main source of rubber bands is the postman, is to return them to the Royal Mail. Chances are your postman will take them back for you, or you could send them FREE OF CHARGE to :
Royal Mail, Rubber Band Recycling Department, Freepost, Tomb Street, Belfast BT1 1AA
Is this a valid freepost address confirmed by the Royal Mail? I can’t find it anywhere on the actual Royal Mail website
Hi Lauren. Thanks for asking. It certainly was on their website when I wrote the post, but I can’t find any record of it now. And looking at their Twitter feed it is offering some fairly abstract advice at this stage. Thanks for highlighting it – I will investigate further and amend when I have some answers!
This is an important issue and I am trying to create a collect-and-reuse program here in Melbourne, Australia. I would love to see why they discontinued their program. Perhaps there was not enough publicity about it. We must not let this issue go away quietly. Please keep searching for answers. I wish you all the best.