A FAMILY of five who have changed their daily routine to reduce their impact on the environment and "protect their children's future" now hope other families in the county will consider their habits too.

Lucy Owens and husband Sion admit they “haven’t always been fantastic at recycling” but decided to reduce the amount of plastic and food they throw away after learning about the damage being caused to the envrionment by waste.

They live in Rhewl, near Ruthin, with their children Betrys, 7, Roly, 4, and Cled, 1, and have signed up to Denbighshire County Council’s campaign to get homeowners to embrace more environmentally friendly waste and recycling routines, ahead of the county’s bin collection changes in 2021.

Over the coming months, the Owens family will be sharing their experiences and thoughts about food recycling through the council’s social media accounts, website and by creating a series of videos.

Lucy, who is a keen supporter of environmental issues and speaks to schools and community groups, said: “I have to admit that we haven’t always been fantastic at recycling but over the last six months we have realised that we have to make some changes to our lives in order to protect the future of our children really, so we have really been trying to do our best to reduce what we use and recycle what we do use in the end.

“We use the food waste service every week. It’s a weekly service and I can’t see why we wouldn’t use it. We should all make sure that stuff we put in the blue bins are totally recyclable too.

“So we do mainly use the food waste caddy for cooked waste. It’s fairly easy, it’s about taking the time to do it."

Sion said: “We are trying to put as much in the blue bins and orange food caddies as possible. It’s not always easy but when you see programmes on the television showing the impact on the environment and the world, it does make you think and encourages you to do as much as you can.

“We do have a compost bin at home and a lot of our raw fruit and veg waste and tea bags goes to that. If not, it goes into the orange caddy such as onion peelings and cooked waste etc.

“This change has made me think and I hope it makes us think more about what impact this has on all of us. We’ve made more of an effort recently and certainly there’s a lot less going into the black bin. It is possible”.

Tony Ward, the council’s head of highways and environmental services, said: “We are delighted that the Owens family are joining our campaign to promote the recycling food waste in the county.

“They have a great attitude to recycling and we look forward to working with them over the coming months, to hear their experiences at first hand and to take any feedback they have into consideration.”