Can you recycle your own recyclable materials? Yes, you can! Many times people toss their paper trash into the trashcan, but recycling facilities often accept this kind of waste, too. Paper bags are easily recycled with other paper materials, which makes them just as eco-friendly and easy to recycle as throwing them directly into the trash or taking them to an environmentally friendly recycling facility.
Why not consider curbside recycling programs? When you take it to a curbside recycling facility, all of your paper items are collected, processed and separated according to whether they are good enough to be recycled or not. This means all of your paper items can go into the right bins and be used again instead of being thrown into a landfill. It also helps that most recycling facilities help you sort your own paper and other paper items before they come into their sorting stations.
Do you have empty gift boxes that aren’t being used any longer? If so, why not take those empty boxes and wrap them up in a brown paper bag? Many people simply throw these gift boxes into their regular household trash, but you can easily make it into a useful packaging that will be better for the environment than using the trash in a landfill. This is one reason why many people are now switching over to curbside recycling bins, even when they only have small packages to take home from work or school.
What if you have some solid waste that isn’t biodegradable? You might not think that you can recycle it, since solid wastes are considered trash. However, paper items made out of paper can still be included in your green efforts. By taking these paper items to an office, school, or community event where you can have your items sorted and segregated into different bins, you are making a real difference in helping the environment while separating your recyclable material from your regular trash.
Just what is household hazardous waste anyway? Well, this is a question that you should consider if you are going to go down to your local landfills to pickup your weekly trash or to the curb. Household hazardous waste is any type of material that contains or produces toxic chemicals, such as batteries, paints, engine oil, solvents, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), as well as asbestos. This type of waste is also usually sent to landfills when it is no longer safe to be thrown away.
Food waste is another big no-no, since it can contain all sorts of nutrients that decompose at a slow pace in landfills. In fact, food waste is one of the leading causes for organic waste buildup in landfills. Fortunately, there are a number of options for getting food scraps off your own plate, including passing them on to charity or donating them to your community’s food bank. However, there is also another option for getting your yard waste out of the trash that is much more convenient.
Composting your food waste is a great way to help reduce your carbon footprint. Not only does this method take less energy to operate than traditional recycling, but you can guarantee that the materials you use for composting will be biodegradable and that they will make their way back into the soil where they belong. Recycling efforts like these also help reduce the amount of garbage that ends up in landfills, as well. Landfills fill up with organic waste, which means that more of the waste doesn’t make it to the recycling facility, and then it will sit there to rot until it is picked up by a waste hauler. With composting, you don’t have to worry about whether the trash in your yard will be recycled or not.
When you compost, the pile becomes full of oxygen and it absorbs all of the nutrients and minerals that it needs to produce healthy plants. This means that the resulting compost is high in both nitrogen and potassium, which are necessary for creating healthy plants. You will notice a difference in your plants and in your yard. With less garbage going into the landfill, you’ll notice a decrease in harmful creatures like rodents and insects, and you’ll even see lower levels of air pollution caused by the presence of dead plant matter. If you aren’t composting, consider taking your organic matter and turning it into fertilizer for your garden or planting new plants. You’ll be doing your part to help save our valuable ecosystem.