Surprising things you can recycle (and some you can't)

Just last week I learned something new about recycling: we can recycle plastic straws! Thanks to Alicia Voorhies from The Soft Landing site (she has wonderful site with BPA-fee products), we have already started doing our part at home to keep those fun bubble-making tubes out of the landfill.

So, with my new recycling knowledge in action at home, I thought I'd see if I could find a few other items that might surprise us about recycling...and share them with you. So, here's what I came up with.

Yes...you can recycle these!

• Plastic Straws

• Paper Gum Wrappers (without the gum, of course)

• Plastic Yogurt Cups

• Egg Cartons (not the styrofoam ones)

• Empty Vitamin Bottles

• Envelopes with plastic windows

• Foil Paper (as long as it doesn't have food on it)

Nope...these go in the trash (or maybe compost if they're compostable, no meat, etc>)

• Used pizza boxes

• Paper plates

• Napkins

• Tissues

Did anything surprise you? Have something to add? Tell us in the comments section below or send me an email.

It's pretty important that we don't try to recycle something that can't truly by recycled since food or the wrong type of plastics can make an entire batch unusable. That just seems like such a waste.

Now I don't feel so bad when the kids want to use straws for cotton ball races.

Comments

[RookieMom Heather]

Interesting list, but I learned a few different things at our Berkeley Recycling Center so I fear it is different on a community by community basis.

For example, I learned we cannot recycle yogurt containers (which was a huge bummer since we were so busy patting ourselves on the back and putting those in with other plastic bottles!); the only plastic we can recycle is bottles labeled #1 or #2 AND with a neck/mouth smaller than the body. This allows plastic soda bottles and plastic milk jugs but disallows almost anything else.

The good news? In Berkeley we have community compost pick-up so we can stick in gooey pizza boxes, DRYER LINT, used tissues, and other organic food waste. So we can go back to patting our own backs, eh?

[Gina]

Thanks for sharing your experience in Berkeley, Heather. It's definitely wise advice to always check with your local officials since this is different from area to area.

I think that's awesome that your community has compost pick-up. We can put some of that in our yard clipping bin but not that much. And since we've yet to get our compost bin done around our house, that'd be really helpful.

[Krissy]

Many cities won't accept yogurt containers, unfortunately. :-(

Great tip about the straws, though!