The holiday season often leads to increased waste. Americans generate 25% more trash between Thanksgiving and New Year’s than at any other time.
By following a few simple recycling tips, you can help reduce your environmental impact.
- Remember, you can recycle clean, dry, and empty cardboard, paper, plastic bottles, jugs, tubs, cans, and glass containers.
- Make sure your plastic shopping bags go back to local retail stores. Plastic bags don’t belong in curbside recycling containers.
- Break down your empty cardboard boxes and remove non-recyclable packing materials before placing them in your recycling container.
- Plain wrapping paper is recyclable, but if it has foil, glitter or a plastic/laminated coating, it’s not recyclable – save that for reuse or trash it.
- Holiday bags are a great tool if you want to reuse materials for gift-giving – treat them like wrapping paper. Plain paper bags are recyclable, but if they’re glossy, laminated, or decked out in glitter, they’re not. Reuse is the best bet here.
- Ribbons, bows, and tissue paper aren’t recyclable, so save them for reuse.
- Do not recycle holiday lights. Trash them if they no longer work.
- Keep batteries and propane tanks out of curbside recycling and waste bins, as they can cause fires in collection vehicles and at waste and recycling facilities.
“In this season of giving, we all can make a difference in the impact we make by reducing waste, recycling right, and keeping reuse and donation top of mind,” Dawn McCormick, WM’s Director of Communications, told Sebastian Daily.
