Paper-Made Items To Keep Out Of The Recycle Bins
While recycling is crucial for the preservation of natural resources, the costs that sometimes accompany the recycling process can cause some to shy away from recycling. This may then accelerate the rate at which the earth's resources are depleted. And since recycling also helps to reduce the level of pollution in the world, making sure that the costs of recycling are kept as low as possible is important. One of the ways to do this is by committing to single stream recycling — where specific recyclable items go into a single bin, a process that usually eliminates the need for sorting and all costs associated with the process.
To ensure that single stream recycling is as efficient as possible, it is important for homeowners to know what not to place in a recycle bin. The following are common items that are usually mistaken as recyclable. Knowing them and keeping them out of recycle bins will go a long way towards making the recycling process easier, cheaper, and more attractive for recycling companies.
Paper cups
Paper is a common recyclable material. However, this does not mean that everything that is made of paper can be recycled. This is so mainly because special materials are usually added to the paper to either make it sturdier or waterproof, something that tends to make recycling a little bit trickier.
In order to make paper cups leak-proof, a special coating is usually added to the surface of the paper, which usually changes the properties of the paper. This makes most single stream paper recycling processes inadequate. And since the paper cups need specialized processes in order to effectively recycle them, including them in the paper recycling category will only serve to complicate the recycling process since they will have to be sorted out before recycling can take place.
Pizza boxes
Pizza boxes are made of cardboard. And since cardboard is a common recyclable material, it is easy to group pizza boxes into the recyclable cardboard group. However, this is a mistake since most pizza boxes are usually contaminated with grease. This usually damages the chances of easy recycling since the recycling facility has to worry about getting rid of the grease first before the cardboard can go through the streamlined cardboard recycling process. Therefore, grouping them with other cardboard materials will necessitate sorting, something that will complicate the recycling process.
Keeping both paper cups and pizza boxes out of recycle bins will help to make it easy for facilities to recycle waste. It will also reduce the amount of materials that have to be discarded due to contamination. For more information, contact local professionals like Lakeshore Recycling.
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