RECYCLING - NO PLASTIC BAGS
At the end of last year, I visited Molly at Rumpke's recycling plant to chat about recycling. I brought my recycling to her to see if sorting my recycling correctly. Molly kindly corrected me in my sinful recycling ways. My first and biggest mistake was the plastic garbage bag I put my recycling in. Apparently this is a BIG no no! Not only does it slow down the production of the recycling plant by having the workers manually open the bag but also it can jam up the machine causing the machine to malfunction or even break. YIKES! No plastic bags!
WHAT CAN WE RECYCLE?
It was really neat to see the recycling plant in action and to learn what Rumpke can recycle. What they can recycle all depends on who they have as an end user. Molly says they work on this on a full time basis. They are constantly looking for a company that will take our waste and use it for their product turning into something new. Some things like aluminums cans will always be recycled because there is a shortage of aluminum.
RECYCLING SYMBOL DOES NOT MEAN IT CAN BE RECYCLED LOCALLY
I was sad to learn that my fruit and salad containers can not be recycled. This is something I buy a lot of and feel good purchasing because of the healthy foods I am consuming. Even though there is a recycle symbol on these containers there is not an end user in our area that will take them. For now they will go into the landfill. As consumers when we are shopping we must think of these things. We were shipping our recycling to places like China, they stopped accepting our waste.
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST OR WATCH THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE
This podcast is short but packed full of information. I take a tour of the recycling plant to see how the recycling is sorted. The amount of recycling that we are doing is awesome to see but I'm sure compared to what we are placing in the landfill is not where is should be. Thinking how we are just a piece of the big world but together we can make a difference. Every little thing you do adds up to make a big difference. Even if I get just one more person to recycle that will start a small ripple that will turn into a big wave. I encourage you to share this blog post with your friends.
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