According to Keep America Beautiful, if we could find a better way to manage the tremendous amount of waste produced in the U.S., up to $9 billion currently used to manage landfills could be used elsewhere. Before you raise your hand to say you’re already doing all you can, the fact is the guidelines can be quite confusing. Depending on where you live, it may not be as easy as putting paper here, and metal there — some cities make the process of recycling quite complicated.
But no matter your address, there are some very common mistakes that everybody makes. According to Junk King, the organization that bills itself as “America’s Greenest Junk Removal Service,” there are nine things you can do right now to improve your own standing as “King of Green” in your home or office. Let’s take a look:
Do Recycle Your Bottlecaps. According to Do Something, Americans throw out 25 million plastic bottles every hour, but the caps aren’t often with them. Make sure to keep the cap and the bottle together for maximum recycling results. It used to be that some municipalities didn’t accept caps, but that is mostly no longer the case. I didn’t know this, how about you?
Don’t Throw Dirty Cardboard into the Recycling Bin. Out of the 69 million tons of paper thrown out every year, it only takes small amounts of dirty or greasy paper to ruin large batches of recyclables. Keep your dirty stuff out!
Do Recycle Glossy Magazines and Coupons. Magazine Publishers of America notes that just 20 percent of magazines are recycled, so don’t forget to put them out for curbside pickup.
Do Sort It Properly. This one can’t be overstated, and it’s the most important key to successful recycling. Keep fiber products like paper separate from plastic and glass. If you’re lucky enough to live in a city where sorting at curbside isn’t required, count your blessings. If not, sort, sort, sort. It can make all the difference.
Don’t Throw Out Plastic Grocery Bags. Every year, Americans throw out 100 billion of them. Unfortunately, local recycling plants don’t tend to accept them, but many grocery stores offer receptacles in which you can return their plastic shopping bags. Try to reuse plastic grocery bags as much as possible, and bring reusable bags to the store.
Don’t Think It’s Too Much Work. If you think that recycling is more work than you want to deal with, you’re really deluding yourself. Over 87 percent of Americans have access to a curbside or drop-off recycling program, so there’s really no excuse for not doing it other than pure laziness. Sorry, but sometimes tough love is called for when it comes to doing what we can to save the environment.
Do Think You May Be Able to Recycle Things You Didn’t Know You Could. While you might not be able to recycle some things at curbside or at your recycling drop off area, sometimes a little creative thinking can make all the difference. For example, when it comes to things like packing foam or foam peanuts. It’s quite likely that your friendly neighborhood pack-and-ship store would be thrilled to take those things off your hands and put them to good re-use. Solutions like this are easy — you just need to care enough to think about it.
Don’t Include Shredded Paper with Your Recycling Until You Check With Your Hauler. Although paper has a recycling rate of 60 percent in the U.S., the shredded stuff is very difficult to get facilities to accept. It frequently isn’t compatible with plant machinery. So check with your recycling hauler on this front and if they don’t accept it, chances are good your pack-and-ship friend mentioned above will.
Don’t Recycle Frozen Food Boxes. Keep those frozen food boxes out of your recycling bins. Those paperboard boxes are designed for the freezer, so they have a coat of plastic polymer sprayed on them, which makes them non-recyclable.
So, what do you think? Are you willing to do a little homework on recycling and maybe help change the world in the process? Can you use those shredded secrets for an art project, or composting? The biggest mistake you can make when it comes to recycling is not doing it. Hopefully some of these tips will help you do your part to keep Mother Earth a great place to live.
Jeff Jacobs has been an expert in building brands and brand stewardship for more than 35 years, working in commercial television, Hollywood film and home video, publishing, and promotional brand merchandise. He’s a staunch advocate of consumer product safety and has a deep passion and belief regarding the issues surrounding compliance and corporate social responsibility. He recently retired as executive director of Quality Certification Alliance, the only non-profit dedicated to helping suppliers provide safe and compliant promotional products. Before that, he was director of brand merchandise for Michelin. As a recovering end-user client, he can’t help but continue to consult Fortune 500 consumer brands on promo product safety when asked. You can also find him working as a volunteer Guardian ad Litem, traveling the world with his lovely wife, or enjoying a cigar at his favorite local cigar shop. Follow Jeff on Twitter, or reach out to him at jacobs.jeffreyp@gmail.com.