What to do about Organizing Recycling

Is your recycling a mess you would rather not think about? Are you bombarded with images of brown paper bags and old boxes piled in the corner of a room? Most of us know the value of recycling; what we need is a system that allows it to be a simple, nonintrusive part of our daily lives. Having your recycling system organized helps with your home organization overall. It will also make your day smoother and happier! Getting Started: Take a good look at what you use before you go shopping for recycling containers. Does your household read a lot of papers and magazines or do you produce more cans. Choose your containers based on your needs, larger containers for your high volume needs. Aren’t required to sort your recycling? Looking at how much recycling you produce and thinking about how often you will want to empty your inside container will help you choose the correct size containers for this part of your home organization. First select functional containers that match your décor, then make sure to label them. Placing a clear laminated label on your recycling containers will help guests in your home easily throw away recycling as well. Who enjoys having to pull cans and bottles out of garbage cans after guests have visited? Labels will stop this from happening. Create an area for daily recycling and one for more occasional use. Your daily recycling should be near your everyday garbage. For many of us daily recycling will include cans, plastics, and paper. In other words containers for items you produce everyday or more frequently. Keep your occasional recycling in a more tucked away location such as a laundry room. Your occasional recycling will include things that you have very little of or that requires special care to recycle. Batteries are one of these things. They can only be recycled through the appropriate channels, so don’t throw them away or put them in your daily recycling bins. Next time you are out take a look many malls, libraries, or even grocery stores have containers to deposit old batteries. In this same area have a container for things you wish to donate. Donating things you are no longer using in your home can help with other home organization projects. Reusing items through donation is just another good way to recycle. Making Purchases: You can reduce the amount of waste and recycling in your home before you ever check out! One of the easiest things to do is avoid items that are prepackaged single servings. In addition to producing a lot more recycling because of the extra packaging, they cost you more. You will save money by buying grocery items and dividing them into individual servings at home. Use Tupperware instead of paper or plastic bags to do this, then you can wash and reuse. Invest in your own canvas bags to bring to the store. Shopping with reusable bags means you won’t be building up a stockpile of paper and plastic bags at your house. If you do use plastic bags remember that many grocery stores have a deposit box for plastic bags to be returned for recycling. Dispose of it: Crush your cans and plastic bottles, and break down any boxes. Doing this will reduce the amount of space you need to dedicate to recycling in your home. If you worry about keeping your house clean and free of smells, rinse out anything that held food before you crush it. When choosing containers, remember it is good to be able to wash them out. Home organization is vital when it comes to the functional system in our lives. Recycling is a daily part of our lives. Avoid letting it become a messy eyesore in your day by organizing your system today!