This is the second article dealing with recycling habits and possibly how we can improve the way we recycle to protect the environment. I hope you found the first one somewhat interesting, informative, and helpful.
Do you recycle all your steel/tin cans? Cans that once held condensed soup, sardines, vegetables, spaghetti sauce, olives, pumpkin, sauerkraut, and all kinds of other food should be recycled. Rinse them out, no need to remove the label, do not flatten them, and recycle. The entire can is meant to be recycled, so throw the lid into recycling with the metal lids from glass jars.
Do you recycle all forms of glass? Any clear or colored jar or bottle can be recycled. You do not have to separate colors. However, glass from windows and mirrors, ceramics, plates, water glasses, and Pyrex dishes are considered landfill.
Do you recycle all aluminum cans? All aluminum cans and bottles are very recyclable. Aluminum foil and pie pans, if free of baked on food, and relatively clean should find their way into the recycling container.
Do you donate unwanted clothing, bedding, curtains, and rugs to the Salvation Army rather than throw them away with your landfill garbage? There are a dozen Salvation Army containers just inside the door of the Recycling Center in Preston. Ripped and torn articles are accepted. All we ask is that your donations are clean and dry. The Salvation Army now accepts shoes, belts, and purses, as well.
Do you use the metal bin as much as you should? There is a large dumpster at the Recycling Center in Preston. Any form of metal can go into this container. Aluminum siding, rain gutters, barbed wire, steel fence posts, grills, pots, pans, satellite dishes, bicycles, snow blowers, and lawn mowers are just a few items that can be placed into this container. If your item is too large to lift it into the container, just lay it next to the dumpster and we will get it into the container.
Do you recycle all your fluorescent and CFL tubes and bulbs? Yes, they do contain mercury and we don’t want or need that stuff floating around getting on us, our food, our soil, or our water.
Do you recycle all your rechargeable and button batteries? A Recycling 101 article in the Fillmore County Journal in June dealt with this subject. I received an e-mail concerning getting a rechargeable battery out of an electric tooth brush. Please don’t hurt yourself trying get the battery out. The people at the recovery center will get it out if you take it to them.
The next group of Recycling 101 articles are scheduled to contain what I consider interesting tidbits of information that have found their way to my desk during the past ten years.
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