Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

On Friday we had the opportunity to tour the Rumpke Recycling Center. Since the landfill ended up being a more pleasant experience than I thought, I was pretty excited to see what recycling was all about. To be honest, I was never all gung-ho about recycling but being in a landfill and a recycling center quickly changed my mind. I realized how important and EASY recycling is and I asked myself why in the world am I not doing it? Instead of telling you all about how the machines work and what process the materials go through I am going to give you the steps to recycle properly. 
Here are the top 10 reasons you should recycle:
1. Recycling saves natural resources
2. Recycling saves energy
3.Recycling creates jobs and helps the economy
4. Recycling is easy to do
5. Recycling is one of the easiest ways to help the environment
6. One person can make a huge difference-the average person can recycle over 700 pounds of material each year
7. Recyclables are made into new products
8. Recycling reduces waste going into landfills- 60% of materials that end up in the landfill could have been recycled
9. Recycling reduces pollution caused by manufacturing companies
10. Recycling protects wildlife habitat
...If none of those convince you to throw your plastics, glass, paper, and aluminum in a bin and put it on the curb to be picked up, I don't know what will. 


Something I also found very helpful was: what can I actually recycle? When I was younger I remember that there were only certain numbers of materials you could recycle. This is not the case anymore. Here are acceptable materials:
1. ALL plastic BOTTLES and JUGS
2. Glass jars and bottles of any color
3. Aluminum, steel and empty aersol cans with lids and tips removed
4. Paper bags, envelopes with or without windows, junk mail, computer papers and other mixed office paper, magazines, telephone books and newspapers with inserts
5. Paperboard, such as cereal boxes
6. Pizza boxes with all grease and food reside removed
--Rinse out containers but you do not have to remove the label. 

 


Unacceptable Items (mainly because of different melting points than acceptable items, machines are not meant to handle these items, or contamination):
1. Plastics that are NOT bottles (i.e. Cool Whip containers, butter tub, or food trays)
2. Plastic bags--these are terrible for the machines AND terrible for the landfill. Switch to paper bags or the cute reusable bags.
3. Styrofoam
4. Lids/caps
5. Coat hangers or steel scrap
6. Motor oil jugs, paint cans, or other chemical containers


Rumpke makes it so easy for us to recycle. The machines are the ones that separate the materials so all we have to do it throw everything in one bin and THAT'S IT. Rumpke has a 97% accuracy rate for separating items which is pretty darn good. 


So, add a a recycling bin next to your garbage can and START RECYCLING.