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 […]

What are the differences between circular and linear economies? With linear economics, items are used once. Everything in a linear economy is single-use. Circular economics improves upon that by taking items and using them as many times as possible. Closed-loop recycling goes hand in hand with a circular economy by reusing items instead of using […]

Recycling is a process where you take items made of a specific material, break it down, and reuse it in some way. The metal can that you rinsed you gets sorted and crushed with thousands of other cans to be processed, melted, and reused. Together, they get melted down and turned into new cans. Paper […]

The coronavirus pandemic has changed a lot. We’re working from home when possible. We’re social distancing. Some are wearing masks whether it’s a state mandate or not. We’re getting curbside meals rather than eating out. We’re staying home more, ordering online more, and creating more trash and recycling than before. These new habits have impacted […]

There’s a problem out there that you may not stop to consider. The packaging materials you get are often trashed unnecessarily. You might know to recycle cardboard, but have you ever stopped to think about how you’re supposed to recycle it? You probably are not aware that plastic envelopes, bubble wrap, and bags are all […]