by Murray Anderson
We all know we should be trying to reduce our impact on the environment by recycling, but in our everyday lives when it seems we never have enough time, it’s tough to do a thorough job. We don’t have any place to put things so we end up just putting them into the trash while telling ourselves we’ll get around to recycling some of it “when we have some time”. Unfortunately for most of us this means those things just end up in a landfill.
And that’s a shame, because so much of what we throw into our trash could be recycled. Let’s just take a look at what makes up the trash in a typical modern home. The largest part (35%) is organic waste; while 30% is paper and paper products, and another 20% is metal, recyclable plastic and glass. So, you can see, almost 80% of our trash is recyclable. The trick for many of us is how to actually do it.
Lets’ start with the largest component of our trash, organic waste. This is things like vegetable peels, apple cores, coffee grounds and egg shells (basically products that originated from plants and animals) that we typically just throw into the garbage. Rather than throwing them into the trash we can put this organic material into a composter, where over time, it will decompose and become beautiful dark crumbly compost (Gardener’s gold) that can be used as fertilizer in gardens and lawns.
- Composting isn’t difficult; it just requires a little space, a willingness to do it and some time. You can buy a ready made composter at a home center or easily build you by making a frame of 2 x 2’s fastened to the ground and surrounded with chicken wire.
- Make the frame about 4’ x 4’ x 4’ and set it up in a sunny area of your yard. Size of a composter isn’t a major concern but smaller than 3’x3’x3’ won’t work we and larger than 5’x5’x5’ is too big for composting to occur.
- Once your composter is in place, all that’s left to do is continually add the organic waste that normally goes into your trash and stir it up occasionally. In 8 to 12 months the first material you put in your composter will have turned into beautiful, black compost.
- You can even add grass clippings, leaves you rake off your lawn and cuttings from your gardens themselves, effectively reusing that fertilizer you put down last summer.
- Since no one want to be constantly running out to the composter every time they peel a potato or cut up a carrot, get a small compost bin at your home or hardware store and keep it under the sink. Just empty it into the composter every few days.
Other recyclables like paper, metal, plastics basically require a little up front organizing to make recycling them easier. One way we can increase the amount we recycle is establishing certain locations where we can store recyclables. Once we eliminate the hassle of trying to figure out where to put things or what to do with them, we can reduce the amount of recyclable material we throw into our landfills.
- Many communities have established recycling programs and provide homeowners with bins for paper (newspapers, flyers), metal (tin cans, pop and beer cans), plastic (pop bottles, milk bottles, detergent and cleaner bottles) and glass (jars, wine bottles) recycling. However, if your community doesn’t do this, you can easily get a number of large plastic bins at a home store that will do the same job.
- Place the bins in an easy to get at location (such as just beside the door from the house into the garage or in a large storage cupboard) and make it a habit to throw recyclables into the proper bin rather than into the trash.
- Once you’ve established a place to put things, recycling becomes so much easier. Now, you don’t even need to think about it anymore; you just sort your recyclables as part of your daily routine.
- If space and clutter are problems, you could save some space in your garage or cupboard by making a multi layered rack or a hinged, swing down shelf to hold the bins while keeping them off the floor and out of the way.
- In some areas there may even be an economic incentive for you to sort and recycle at least your aluminum cans - since you’ve paid a refundable deposit on them. Once they’re sorted out of the trash, it’s no hassle to take them to a recycling depot and pick up a few easy dollars.
We all know recycling provides a benefit to everyone, but sorting out our trash can be time consuming and easy to get away from. However, by applying the old saying “a place for everything and everything in its place” to recycling in our homes, we can maximize our personal recycling and make recycling a little easier. In the long run, everyone will benefit.
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