Environmental Home Remodeling for your Bedroom, Kitchen and Beyond!

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Experts estimate that about 70 percent of trash in the United States can be recycled in one way or another. Unfortunately, only about 30 percent is recycled. Thus, a significant amount of refuse that arrives at landfills reaches this destination needlessly. Many items in landfills will take hundreds of years to decompose, which causes serious space issues and other hazards such as harmful gases entering the atmosphere and ground. Instead of throwing these items away, it’s possible to recycle paper, glass, and plastic to keep them out of landfills. Recycling also conserves natural resources such as energy and trees because these resources are used to produce recyclable materials. Practices such as repurposing products and composting are also beneficial for people and the environment.

GarbageCans

Traditional Methods of Recycling

Standard recycling practices include separating out items such as plastic, glass, metal, and paper and placing them into containers for recycling. Waste collection companies pick up these items to take them to a facility for recycling into new products.

Paper

Recycling paper products has a positive and direct impact on the environment. By recycling paper, trees are conserved because they aren’t needed to create new paper products. A wide variety of paper types are suitable for recycling, including coffee filters, egg cartons, masking tape, and some types of bandages.

Plastic

Many consumers find plastic recycling confusing. Plastic products have numbers on them that indicate the type of plastic they are made of and how these items can be recycled. The codes are designed to facilitate sorting at recycling facilities and to ensure that the different types of plastic are melted down correctly for future use. The most common plastic items recycled include water bottles, milk jugs, and detergent bottles.

Glass

Glass is also recyclable. However, the procedure for recycling glass and the types accepted vary based on the rules of local recycling facilities. Most facilities that accept glass for recycling take glass beverage bottles, baby food jars, and some types of colored glass. Glass differs from other types of recyclable materials because it can be recycled over and over again without any loss of clarity or quality. Facilities that possess the necessary equipment can recycle glass quite easily, and the entire process, from recycling to producing a recycled glass product, takes less than a month.

  • Glass Container Recycling Loop: The glass recycling process involves collecting items, separating them by material type, transporting them to a glass processing company, sorting by color, selling the glass to container manufacturing companies, and making the material into new items.
  • How to Recycle Glass: Recycling glass is quite simple, and even broken glass is recyclable.
  • The Glass Facts: Glass in a landfill will take 1,000,000 years to fully decompose.
  • How Glass Is Recycled: To recycle glass, the items are crushed, melted, and molded into new products.
  • Recycling Glass: How it Helps the Environment: New products made from recycled glass can include drinking glasses and glass fiber.

Getting Creative With Recycling

Although it’s typical to think of standard recyclable objects such as plastic, glass, and paper when the topic of recycling comes up, there are other ways to recycle as well. Instead of throwing old clothing away, people can donate these items to be used by other people. Freecycling involves giving items away to other people who can use them. For example, instead of throwing away a used mattress, it could be donated for use by someone who can’t afford to buy a new mattress. Meanwhile, reusing materials in art projects is a creative and environmentally friendly way to create artwork for people of all ages.

Clothes

Children tend to outgrow clothes before they wear out. Instead of throwing these clothing items away, families can donate the clothes so that people who are less fortunate can use them. Whenever clothes are outgrown or a fashion trend passes, the fabrics contained in clothing can be reused in a number of different ways. For example, old sweaters can be used to make a new blanket or pillow.

Freecycling

Freecycling is an effective way to save money and minimize your impact on the environment. Freecycling involves giving away old items so that other people can continue to use them. Many communities manage freecycling forums with members donating items for other people to use. The benefits include saving money, reducing clutter in the home, and keeping items from accumulating in landfills.

Make Art

People of all ages enjoy making artwork from recycled items. Many schools have programs that involve collecting recyclable materials for students to use in their art projects. This process saves the schools money and reduces waste in landfills. For example, schools often collect egg cartons, paper towel rolls, newspapers, empty cans, and plastic containers.

Composting

Composting involves gathering natural waste products and allowing these materials to decompose in either a pile or a container. Once the materials have decomposed, the resulting compost is used to enhance soil in gardens. Composting not only helps the soil, but it reduces refuse in landfills. Using natural compost in soil also helps eliminate the need for chemical soil enhancers, which can damage the environment.

  • Composting Tip Sheet: Composting involves collecting materials such as grass clippings, coffee grounds, and vegetable scraps to produce compost.
  • Turn Your Spoils Into Soil: Composting is the process of breaking down organic materials such as kitchen scraps.
  • How to Compost: Composting involves mixing brown and green materials with air and water to produce rich compost.
  • Composting and Food Scraps: Items that can be used for composting include eggs, coffee grounds, and raw or cooked vegetable scraps.
  • Backyard Composting: A compost pile can be as simple as a pile in the backyard where food scraps and grass clippings are thrown.

Worm Composting

Worm composting is similar to standard composting except that the process involves worms. As the worms consume the food waste, they produce a material known as vermicompost. Making vermicompost tends to happen more quickly than standard compost, and it is applied in the same fashion in gardens.

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Logan Block

Logan Block

Logan is the former content director of Sleepopolis. As content director, he reviewed new mattresses every week and curated the comparisons, best of pages, and video guides on the site. Logan perfected his method by personally testing over 200 different mattresses, so he’s not only able to discern the overall vibe of a specific bed, but to contextualize its feel within the bed-in-a-box market as a whole.