Simplify Recycling With These 7 Tips

Young Man Emptying Household Recycling Into Green Bin

Recycling can be overwhelming if you are a beginner. Let’s face it, there are so many items we use, touch, and throw away in a day that can be recycled. It can almost feel like your recycling bin is overflowing and your trash bin stays empty. If you are overwhelmed by recycling, there is a chance you’re thinking too much into it. Try following these seven tips to make recycling easier in your home.

1. Don’t Feel Guilty about Recycling

“Wish-Cycling” is a real thing, and it eats a lot of people alive. Have you ever thrown away something and felt bad because it’s in too good of shape to go to a landfill? Try donating it to a local charity. Although, those tangled up Christmas lights or old garden hoses should simply be thrown away.

2. Size Matters

Use your credit card as a good way to measure. If the item is smaller than your credit card there is no need to recycle it. Think bottle caps, candy wrappers, and paper clips. Trying to collect these things to recycle will drive you insane because they are so small.

3. Ditch the Bag, Keep Things Loose

Bagging your recyclables counteracts itself and makes it more difficult for staff at recycling plants. Most of the time, plastic bags are not recyclable. Therefore, the staff working and sorting through your items ends up with a plastic bag that they don’t know what to do with. Therefore, keep the items loose and use a reusable bin to store them.

4. Items You Can and Can’t Recycle

Sometimes we don’t know what we can and can’t recycle. Items such as paper, cardboard, plastic bottles and jugs, cans and sometimes glass can be recycled easily. Although, items such as batteries, foam, single use utensils, paper towels, plastic bags, clothing, and shoes cannot be recycled.

5. Sniff it Out

Give your recycling bin the sniff test. Most items you can recycle are not perishable and won’t let off an odor prior to throwing them away. If your recycling bin smells bad, there is a chance you threw something in there that is not recyclable.

6. Empty, Clean, and Dry

Empty food containers are great items to recycle, but they are often messy when you get ready to recycle them. What most people don’t know is putting one food contaminated item in the recycle bin can contaminate an entire truckload. So make “Empty, Clean, and Dry” your new recycling motto.

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7. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle…

We are sure you have heard that phrase before, but it stands true! Find ways to reduce waste in your home all together. Invest in reusable products, eliminate plastic grocery store bags, grab a reusable water bottle to take with you throughout the day, start meal planning to minimize getting takeout, and donate or repair items instead of trashing them.

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