by Katie LaFond
Step 1: Get Serious About Recycling
- Many communities have curbside recycling or transfer stations that accept recycling. Utilize these options
- Grocery stores often have plastic shopping bag recycling stations, as well as bottle and can return facilities
Recycling! Photo by Katie LaFond
- Electronics stores, like Best Buy or Staples, often accept old electronics for recycling. Go through your basement and drawers for those hidden old electronics that can get recycled which cleans out your house and frees up the resources to make new items
- Aluminum is an example of a resource that is much less costly to recycle than to produce from scratch. Recycling aluminum requires only 5% of the total amount of energy that is used for making new aluminum.
- Paper can be recycled about five to seven times before the fibers become too short to be recycled again, and saves many trees along the way (also be careful not to misprint copies, and to only make what you need… double sided, perhaps)
- No recycling available while you’re out? Put the bottle in your bag, and put it in the recycling bin at home.
- Not sure how to recycle it? Check Earth911.
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This is part two of a thirteen-part series by Katie on ways to walk more lightly on the Earth. You can read the introduction here.