I’ve considered starting to recycle for probably years by now. Selfishly, I never educated myself or pursued designing a recycling program at my house to keep it simple and easy. The reason why, is that for some reason when I thought of recycling I thought it would be difficult, time consuming, a pain. After feeling a tinge of guilt every time I threw a plastic bottle in the trash can I decided to just do it already.
First I located the counties website and found a list of the items they will take and where they are located. Then I called them to find out some of the details I was confused on. How does this work exactly? Do I bring the items in a box? A bag? Do I need to clean them? Crush them? That was the best thing for me because talking to someone summed everything up pretty clearly and now I feel like I understand what to do and won’t feel quite so lost when I show up.
I bought a cheap, nine-gallon trash can at WalMart and sat it by our normal trash can. I printed a list of things that are able to be recycled and taped it to the side and then printed this icon for the front.
For now, to get us started, we are recycling aluminum, plastics #1 and plastics #2. As we get used to it and it becomes second nature, I will try to incorporate more. We go through a lot of cans and plastic bottles so I know I will feel much better about myself by doing this. However, I started to think to myself, does this really make that big of a difference? I mean, I know recycling is important but just how important? I found some great info on Recycling Revolution on just how much we can do by recycling.
-Every ton of paper that is recycled saves 17 trees.
-The energy we save when we recycle one glass bottle is enough to light a light bulb for four hours.
-Every bit of recycling makes a difference. For example, one year of recycling on just one college campus, Stanford University, saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.
-It takes 95% less energy to recycle aluminum than it does to make it from raw materials. Making recycled steel saves 60%, recycled newspaper 40%, recycled plastics 70%, and recycled glass 40%. These savings far outweigh the energy created as by-products of incineration and landfilling.
-A national recycling rate of 30% reduces greenhouse gas emissions as much as removing nearly 25 million cars from the road.
So this is my encouragement to you – if you aren’t already – start recycling, even if it is just one item for now. It all helps!
Sher Bailey is a writer in the Midwest who believes the power of humor, Mod Podge, and grandkids can fix most problems in life. You can find her at SherBailey.com.
Krystal says
We stopped buying water bottles and got a Brita water filter that fits over out facet… I love it, the water tasted different at first, but now I don’t notice it.
Great job on your steps to going green!
Lucy Marie says
Recycling is made so easy where we live. They pick it up with our trash and it goes in a cycle. Every other week they pick up paper and the alternate weeks they pick up cans and plastic.
It is really quite easy once you get used to it, so just keep it up!
Jessi says
We used to recycle aluminum but haven’t since we moved in February. Thanks for the reminder, I’m going to call the local recycling center today!
Awesome that you’re recycling!
Dollface says
This is really great. In our new apartment we will have a recycle bin. xxxoo
Allyson says
Welcome to the wonderful world of recycling! You are going to get hooked. 🙂
Saskia says
We recycle glass, papers and aluminium – the dustmen collect the containers from our front door!
I have friends who live in Japan and they have (I’m not kidding) 10 different trash cans for all different materials… 9 out of the 10 are recycled!
Saskia x
a H.I.T. says
In our apartment, space is extremely limited. But, our building recycle bins aren’t far from our door. Since recycling all the plastic drink containers is just too much at the moment, we recycle all the paper in the apartment. As we are done with it, I just walk outside and place it in our bin.
I look forward to recycling even more when we move to a house.
Ada says
This is a great project. You can also visit this website to learn more about the current issues. Many parts of our planet and hundreds of species of animals and birds suffer because of our not serious attitude.