Tips for easy recycling

Recycling can seem like a lot of overwhelming work at first. Depending where you live, it may involve lots of sorting. You may have to get used to cleaning something up before tossing it in the recycling bin. There are some steps you can take to organize your efforts and make things easier.

But remember that the #1 tip will always be: reduce. The green mantra is “reduce, reuse, recycle”, in that order, because that’s the order that does the most good. Recycling uses energy, which contributes to your carbon footprint. It’s better than tossing stuff in the landfill, but the very best thing to do is to have less stuff that needs recycling in the first place.

And the #2 tip will always be reuse. If you can find a way to reuse an item instead of consuming a new item, the end result is still less stuff to be recycled or sitting in a landfill, and that’s the goal.

1. Find out what can be recycled in your area. It’s surprising how much it varies from town to town. Also find out what you need to do to stuff before recycling it. For example, you may be expected to clean any food matter off food containers. You should rinse any soda cans or bottles that contained sugar.
2. To my knowledge, no recycling pick-up service handles electronics. Stores like Staples often accept electronics and old batteries and printer cartridges – find out a local place where you can take this stuff. Set up a place to collect this stuff – a bag, a garbage bin, whatever. Once it’s full, you can make one run to one drop-off location, and that’s it. You’ll probably only need to do this once a year.
3. Set up your home for recycling. Beside your main trash can, set up a container for recyclables. If you’re in a town that doesn’t require sorting, you just need one. Pick something with handles so you can easily carry it to the recycling bin. If you are required to sort, set up additional containers for each type of recycling. My preference for this is paper grocery bags with handles, because I can easily turn them up, dump the stuff into the recycling bin, and bring the bag back for reuse. Your recycling should not stink.
4. You can also dump stuff directly into your curb bins, if you prefer. This might mean walking stuff to the bins several times a day, which may or may not be convenient to you.
5. Just because there’s no curbside pickup of recycling in your area doesn’t mean there aren’t recycling centers in easy driving distance of your home. It’s worth a little research to find out all your options.

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Posted in Going Green on January 6, 2010