How can my family start recycling, help please?

Question

We go through ALOT of paper & plastic that could be recycled. But we really dont know how to go about doing that. There isnt anybody who comes down our street to pick up recycling bins or anything...

We are pretty much clueless, but we want to start, just dont know how!?

Answer 1

Our town has a drop off location for recyclables. If you do not have curbside service through your trash company your 1st stop should be your town hall where they can tell you if there is a local drop off center. If there is a local center you will need to find out if you have to sort the items or not (ours does not require sorting) and what type of items they take (ours does not take plastic bags, nor any kind of paper, but we our boy scout troop does do once a month newspaper recycling and generally junkmail and magazine can be included in this)

Lots of grocery stores now a days have a box somewhere near the front of the store to place plastic grocery bags to be recycled.

If your local town is small and you have no drop off center try to next biggest town near you if you are willing to drive to drop stuff off once a month (while grocery shopping or something)

Once you find out where to take things, you will need to get something to put the items in while they are accumulating waiting on you to take them in. Plastic stackable bins with open fronts are easiest and the most space saving for items like tin cans, glass, and plastics. Newspaper, junkmail, envelopes, magazines, paper labels from the outside of tin cans can all be stacked neatly in a brown paper bag and when full dropped off (just don't put any used paper plates, or greasy pizza boxes etc in there).  Plastic grocery bags can all be crammed into one bag until packed full (or lots of stores offer cloth reusable bags fairly cheap, my local Meijer, and Spartan stores both sell them for 99 cents each, and this is even better for the earth than using the plastic ones and recycling).

My husband and I both work for companies that encourage recycling and they allow employees to use the dumpster that is marked "cardboard only" for any cardboard that needs to be recycled, so we have a large cardboard box that we neatly stack up empty cereal boxes and other similar cardboard packaging into (after it has been flattened) and we take it to work and empty once every other month or so)

And lets not forget the one last way of recycling.. the compost pile. Any organic matter like fruit and veggie scraps, even egg shells can go into the compost pile, alternated with leaves and grass clippings. The only thing you do not want to throw in there is fat of any kind because this will not break down and will only go rancid and really stink, and will also attract all sorts of critters.

Once we started recycling we went from one kitchen sized bag of trash a day to maybe one per week, and both my kids (3 yo son and 4yo daughter) know where to put each item. If I hand them a piece of paper for instance they can put it where it goes without being told, and we have only been doing it for a year.

Answer 2

If your city doesn't provide curbside pickup, you'll have to sort paper, metal, plastic, and glass separately then find somewhere in the city to take your recyclables.  One thought is why not contact your city government (at the courthouse or city hall) and make a strong suggestion.

Answer 3

If you go to a well known supermarket chain they at some sites a machine into which you can deposit metal cans and hard plastic and glass items and get points on your loyalty card. hope this is useful.

Answer 4

well put you plastic bottles, cans, and glass somewhere else and then you bring that to a reycleing center and get money (i would look it up to find the center)

Answer 5

I use the site www.earth911.org to find local recycle centers. They will let you know which centers take what and what their hours and locations are. You may want to give a call or stop by to see how they operate and what the best way to separate the items are.

Basics, take lids off of all items, they are generally made of different materials. Most pay sites only take plastics 1 and 2, look on the bottom of the container for the chasing arrows you should see a number. Glass is usually more valuable if sorted by color. The most common paper recycled is news paper, then white, then junk mail. Cardboard is also very commonly recycled. Anything metal can be recycled, although aluminum cans is the most common.

When setting up an area for your recycling make it easy and convenient, you are more likely to stick with it that way. Also make it fit your decor, there is no rule saying they have to be in plastic bins, you can use canvas totes, baskets anythig.

I have 2 garbage cans that are in a cupboard, one for trash the other for recycling. When the recycling gets full we take it an area we have outside near the garbage can and sort it there. If we had to take a trip outside everytime we were finished with a soda can it would never make it to the recycle center.

Answer 6

There are some less obvious ways to start recycling.  My first advice to you would be to use your local Freecycle, and post unwanted usable items to give to others instead of throwing them out.  You can also donate these items to your local non-profit resale shop.  We also do some other things, like purchase recycled paper products, use newspaper and paper bags for wrapping paper, etc.  There are so many simple ways to begin!  I hope this got you thinking!

Answer 7

set up some sort of collection "bins" for : plastic, aluminum, glass, newspaper.....and use them.

Answer 8

Odd, I honestly didnt know there were cities that didn't give you a specific recycling bin along with your solid and yard trash.

Starting it is really simple actually. Get yourself three trash cans, prefrably different colors, and label one of them paper, one of the aluminum, and one of them plastic. (Okay, maybe one more for general plastic waste). It's a matter of trashing the right stuff in the right places. When they are full, you can contact your local waste department and ask them for the nearest recycling center.

Also, if you take your plastics and aluminum cans to certain recycling centers, they will give you cash for the recyclable plastics and cans you give them. It won't be much unless you stockpile it up, but maybe you could get $10 out of it that you wouldn't have had at all if you just trashed it.

Answer 9

call your town. they will be able to either set you up with a drop off location or pick it up. Most towns on Long Island have pick up service. a lot of the supermarket bottle returns location have cans for rejected recycling containers

Answer 10

If there is no curbside collection, you need to find a local drop-off location for recyclables.  Having no idea where you live, it is difficult to give specific advice.  Try to contact your town's department of sanitation or whoever collects your trash.  If you don't have curbside trash collection either, contact your county for a drop off site.  Some materials may not be collected in your area.

Answer 11

okay first start by setting up a separte trash can for cans plastic and paper and other things.

Answer 12

Umm.

Start separating trash [Thats NOT recycleable] and trash that IS recyclable. Once they are filled up you can take them to a local recycleing center or whatever. Dump it. Then just go bk home and do it again.

:]] Very simple and easy.

Good luck!