• Recycling in Rural Areas: Challenges and Creative Solutions

    September 23, 2024

    In a larger city, recycling is easy to manage. Recycling facilities tend to be nearby and easy to reach, so trucks can navigate neighborhoods and plan recycling pick-ups that are cost-effective. When you live in a rural area, you may not even have curbside trash hauling due to the distance between houses. If there are five […]

  • A person separating recycling

    How to Recycle Items That Aren’t Accepted In Your Blue Bin

    February 28, 2023

    When an item in your blue bin shouldn’t be in that bin, two things happen. First, improperly recycled items can damage the recycling equipment. Second, workers have to remove the incorrectly recycled items and move them to trash bins to be hauled to the landfill, which raises operating costs.Items that are typically accepted in blue […]

  • Halloween Candy Wrappers Are Hard to Recycle!

    November 10, 2022

    An estimated 600 million pounds of Halloween candy was handed out on October 31st. Each miniature or full-size candy is individually wrapped in a plastic wrapper. While that small wrapper may seem insignificant to you, add them all up. 600 million candy wrappers, plus the plastic bags they come in and the plastic bags some […]

  • Ten Unusual Places Where Researchers Have Found Microplastics

    July 27, 2021

    Any plastic piece that’s less than five millimeters in length is known as microplastic. To better understand how tiny these pieces are, a grain of rice is a little larger. It’s about the size of a pencil eraser.Microplastics come from plastic that’s not recycled and breaks down. Small fragments chip or flake off as the […]

  • Products and Tips That Help You Reduce Waste While Grocery Shopping

    June 1, 2021

    Think about the last time you went grocery shopping. Starting with the produce section, you probably ended up with several plastic bags that contained your potatoes, some fruit, the cauliflower you needed, and your onions. Continuing to the meat and seafood area, you have more plastic and styrofoam. Even if you buy from the butcher or […]

  • How Are Bed in the Box Mattresses Recycled?

    February 3, 2021

    According to the non-profit Mattress Recycling Council, every year Americans dispose of more than 1.5 million mattresses. Some of the components in a mattress can be recycled, yet few states actually have laws in place.Take a look back at mattresses over the centuries. People used to sleep on piles of straw, leaves, wool, or hay […]

  • Cost-Effective DIY Projects to Teach Your Kids About Sustainability

    November 18, 2020

    Sustainability is a process where you avoid depleting natural resources while creating something new. It’s based on three foundations: people, planet, and profit. The profit aspect may not be something your children will comprehend beyond the basics at this point, but they will be able to understand how sustainability is designed to help people and […]

  • Unique Ways to Reuse Your Trash and Old Items

    July 22, 2020

    Did you know that per EPA reports, Americans throw away 267.8 million tons of waste each day? It breaks down to just over 4.5 pounds per person each day. Of that waste, about 10% is composted, some is burned for energy, and the rest sits in the landfill where it slowly breaks down. Reusing trash […]

  • Turn any Reusable Bottle into a Smart Bottle

    May 29, 2020

    What if we could give someone else a cup of clean water while staying hydrated?

  • How to Throw an Eco-Fabulous Party

    February 8, 2020

    There’s nothing worse than disposable plates and utensils stuffed into your garbage bin at the end of a wonderful party except maybe plates of uneaten, wasted food.