Now the word recycle is used for everything from furniture, toys and books to plastic water bottles, cardboard and paper. The first time I remember hearing the word recycle, the company I worked for was selling reusable shopping bags. I figured they couldn’t take up much room in the car, so I bought three. These bags are sturdy enough to hold more than three items inside, unlike a plastic grocery sack. You know what I’m talking about? Retail stores may put one or two items in a plastic bag and then you end up with 10 bags for 30 items.
I was reluctant to do anything besides the bags but everywhere I looked people were finding new ways to recycle! I thought saving the grocery bags was a big deal, right? Wouldn’t doing more stuff take a lot of time? So, to be nice to Mother Nature, and the future of our children and grandchildren, I decided what the heck, I’ll give it a shot. I started saving the paper and realized it’s not that hard to do. An extra incentive for me was a pet rescue facility in my area had a dumpster for paper to help support their efforts. All of my pets have been rescues so I was happy to help both causes. I then moved on to using stainless steel bottles for drinking instead of all those plastic bottles. Wow, this actually helps me save money too. How cool is that?
Now it’s a goal to see how little trash I can have. I have cut our ‘trash’ down by 75%. Just think what will happen when everyone does that!
Businesses are recycling too. PRIER recycles as much as possible including scrap metal, manufacturing byproducts, cardboard, paper and cans. Even Oprah challenged her staff to only use one napkin instead of three or four, and they switched to reusable mugs. This helps reduce how much trash goes in the landfill, since items that absorb food are not usually recyclable.
Taking my recycling to the drop-off centers is getting easier every day too. There is a drop-off center four miles from our home and glass is the only thing we put in a different dumpster. How simple is that? Now, when I get a full sack, I just drop it off. We are down to one bin in our garage and I’m saving money on trash bags.
At this point I thought I was doing a good job of recycling. But as my manager says “you learn something new every day.” Do you know what others items can be recycled with your retailer’s plastic bags? The list would include most of the plastic wrappers on everything from newspapers to dry cleaning to grocery items. You can also recycle plastic food storage bags and bubble wrap.
Some of the common items to recycle are aluminum and tin cans, newspaper, office paper, junk mail (who doesn’t get this), paperboard like cereal boxes, corrugated cardboard, magazines, catalogs and telephone books. Other items would include household hazardous waste, computer equipment, ink cartridges and even bicycle parts.
The internet makes everything easy too. You can search for recycling centers and find one close to you. I love this site for the Kansas City area, http://www.recyclespot.org . You can search by what item you want to recycle, like ink cartridges, and find the closest location, as well as a lot of other helpful information. I’m sure other cities have sites like this as well.
Can you think of other things to recycle?
