The holidays are pretty much over. Cards, envelopes, wrapping paper, packaging and food containers have added to your festive home décor. And now you have to de-clutter.
Paper seems to be people’s favorite material to recycle. According to Earth 911, “more paper is recovered for recycling than plastic, aluminum and glass combined.” It’s important to know what you can and can’t place in your curbside bin in regards to paper.
Easy stuff first. If the wrapping paper is beyond all hope of reusing next year, put it in the bin! We’ll also take any cards, envelopes, newspapers, and ads that you no longer need.
Find yourself removing stickers, staples and paper clips? Throwing away envelopes with the little plastic windows? There’s good news! You can toss all of those items in the bin without worry. They get removed during the recycling process.
Over the past month, you probably have accumulated a lot of cardboard: packaging from online orders, gift boxes, pizza boxes left over from lazy evenings hiding from the cold. We will take your cardboard; unfortunately, dirty or greasy pizza boxes should get pitched with the waste. Those materials are contaminating during the recycling process.
So, you’ve taken care of your cardboard, but what about all of the packing peanuts that came with your holiday online orders? Expanded polystyrene, more commonly known as Styrofoam, is made up of 98% air and uses more energy in the recycling process than it actually saves, so we do not accept it.
There are ways, however, to keep Styrofoam out of landfills:
Have you done your post-holiday cleaning yet? If not, now you know the proper place for
all of your paper and packaging products!