The Do's and Dont's of Recycling
In general, here are a few things to keep in mind:
Cleanliness counts
Rinsing cans and keeping boxes out of the weather makes them easier to process. That keeps costs down.
When supplied with a bin, pay attention to what goes in
Take it upon yourself to be an accurate recycler. A cereal box is probably great, but a greasy pizza box may not be. Plastic bottles are good, but not the caps.
Good bets
Steel cans, aluminum cans, newspapers, magazines, catalogs, junk mail, plastic beverage bottles, milk jugs, glass bottles and jars, cereal boxes, other clean and dry cardboard boxes.
Probably not
Plastic grocery bags, styrofoam, lightbulbs, food-soiled paper, wax paper, ceramics
Interesting End Products:
-Glass beverage containers can be recycled over and over again. But they can also be used for other things you may not expect. Like roads. Marbles. Decorative tiles. Surfboards. And a host of other products and materials.
-Five plastic bottles yield enough fiber for one extra large T-shirt, one square foot of carpet or enough fiber to fill one ski jacket.
-Steel and aluminum cans can be easily recycled for use in other steel and aluminum products. This not only conserves mineral resources, but the recycling process also uses about 75% less energy than using virgin materials. Recycled steel and aluminum finds its way into new cars, bikes, appliances, cookware and a whole lot more.