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 […]

Containers and packaging make up the bulk of the recyclables your household generates. Between 2000 and 2018, the amounts generated increased from 75.84 million tons to 82.22 million tons. The good news is that the tonnage recycled increased from approximately 38% to 53.8%.There’s still room for improvement. In 2000, 37.86 million tons of packaging and […]

Every waste district in the U.S. has its own policies on what is accepted and what isn’t. Curbside haulers in one town may welcome all plastics while another only takes #1 and #2. Some haulers take away food waste to be composted instead of sent to the landfill, but others want food waste in the […]

Hazardous materials cannot go into the trash. Fluids like unused paint and cleaners, heating fuels like unused kerosene, and automotive fluids like dirty oil and transmission fluid pollute the groundwater and soil if they’re disposed of improperly. Dumping used motor oil in a river can harm the fish and wildlife that rely on that river […]

Wish-cycling is the practice of recycling items that cannot be recycled. It stems from the best intentions. You wish or hope that something you’ve bought or use regularly can be recycled. Instead, your good intentions end up costing recycling companies more time and money. Worse, it can impact recycling at a later processing point. The items […]

In August, California became the first state in the U.S. to require any company making plastic bottles to use recycled plastic. Governor Newsom signed AB 793 into law on September 24th. Starting in 2022, big changes are coming to plastic bottles in the products available to consumers.Many food and beverage manufacturers use virgin plastic to […]

Take a trip back to the 1980s when recycling started gaining steam. School kids were informed to put their unneeded papers into boxes in the classroom. Those papers would get recycled. Bottles and glass became the next items being recycled. At the time, the focus was on keeping reusable materials out of overflowing landfills.Fast forward […]

Think about the plastics in your home. You likely have several different kinds of the seven most common plastics in your cupboards and closets. From plastic juice bottles to detergent containers, your home has a lot of plastic in some stage of use. Once it’s empty, what happens? It’s just as likely that your waste […]

The recycling industry has seen so many changes over the decades. As early as the late-1800s, men were going from one home to the next looking for worn-out clothing. Why? Companies bought the “rags” to turn them into paper and hired men to collect those rags. This was just the beginning. Every decade, recycling advances. […]

What do you do when your batteries are dead? How do you get rid of rechargeable electronics when they no longer hold a charge? Battery recycling is mandated in many areas, but consumers don’t always understand the process. If your hauler tells you not to put batteries in your recycling bin, you probably think they […]