Proper Recycling Procedures

Currently, our Earth is going through a serious crisis of resources such as food, metal, oil, and other things that we use without noticing. Some of these can be fully or partially recycled. It is known that an American produces approximately 2.04 kilograms of trash on a daily basis. If we estimate that half of that is food waste, then we have 1kiliograms of recyclable products. If we properly recycle for a year, this will add up to 365 kg for each person in the USA.

If this could happen, this Earth would be a much better place to live. However, we are throwing away most of these precious resources. Even the citizens in countries that are advanced in educating people about a proper idea, such as Korea, sometimes have a hard time in distinguishing which goes into which category when recycling.

There are a lot of categories we can divide if we go deeply into this matter. However, because this report is to advance our surround environment, I will focus on the categories that are need due to household goods. They are high-grade paper, mixed paper, aluminum, glass, metal cans, #2 HDPE plastic, plastic, and the rest will be classified as burnable goods, or unrecyclable things.

High-grade paper includes Computer paper, (greenbar or white), letterhead bond stationary, index cards, copy paper, envelopes (no windows), white manila file folders, and legal pads (no backing). All of these have to be in a clean and dry state in order to be recycled. Mixed paper: books (hardcover/paperback), foreign cardboards, bags other than brown, shopping bags (Kraft paper), flat cardboards (i.e. cereal/shoe boxes), gable top containers (milk, juice containers), brochures, pamphlets, and junk mail have to be clean, dry and in addition, the boxes have to be pressed. Aluminum can be separated again into two it will first be divided into a place for aluminum cans only, and another for clean aluminum made plates, foil, etc. Glass is literally anything glass thing. The part where quite a few make a mistake is that it has to be clean, rinsed off of anything product inside it, no labels, and not caps or anything apart from the glass itself. Metal cans are simple enough the cans that we drink every day. Though, they have to be thoroughly rinsed also. #2 HDPE plastic might sound new but it is actually the plastic used in milk and water jugs, shampoo bottles, bleach bottles, and any sort of plastic such as those named above. It can be identified if it has the #2 symbol on bottom of containers. They must be rinsed and flattened. Finally the plastic is just the rest of the recyclable plastic.