Recycling is such a basic of living sustainably that it’s easy to assume everybody does it. Of course, that assumption makes those among us who might not have quite gotten the hang of it feel guilty. Really guilty. Too guilty to do anything about it except furtively sneak our soda cans and newspapers into the garbage bag. The black, heavy-duty, not-a-chance-you-will-see-what’s-in-it garbage bag.
It’s time to change that trash-trundling habit and step into the recycling light. In case you have any reservations, here are a few facts from Recycling-Revolution.com:
- Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours — or the equivalent of a half a gallon of gasoline.
- We use over 80,000,000,000 aluminum soda cans every year.
- An aluminum can that is thrown away will still be a can 500 years from now!
- The average American uses seven trees a year in paper, wood, and other products made from
trees. This amounts to about 2,000,000,000 trees per year!
- If every American recycled just one-tenth of their newspapers, we would save about 25,000,000 trees a year.
- A typical family consumes 182 gallons of soda, 29 gallons of juice, 104 gallons of milk, and 26 gallons of bottled water a year. That’s a lot of containers.
Now that you feel even guiltier if you’re not yet recycling, let’s get you started. The five big groups that you can recycle are paper, plastic, metal (aluminum/steel cans), glass, and organic waste. (There are other things, too, but the major five are a good place to start.) Begin with one step at a time, and keep building up. Since paper floods into your home every day, tackle it first.
First, set up a box, bag, or another garbage can next to your already present garbage can. If you have a garage, carport, patio, or porch where you can do this, great. If you live in an apartment or other urban dwelling without that kind of space, just keep it small. You’ll only need to empty your recycling about as often as you empty your trash. A little more effort for guilt-free living? Not bad.
From now on, when you walk over the the trash, put anything paper into your recycling container. Junk mail, newspapers, magazine inserts, circulars, coupons, all those hand-written love letters… Into the recycling container they go! If you haven’t already spotted a recycling center, just keep an eye out next time you do errands. Or go here and use Earth911′s handy locater to find the one nearest to you.
Image Credit: Mykl Roventine
