Recyclables
All recyclables must be ____ & _____ to keep the end product contaminant-free.
What are clean & dry?
Whether you prefer thin-crust or deep-dish, this greasy box goes in the compost, not recycling.
What is a pizza box? (Or any food-soiled uncoated paper for that matter!)
The average American produces 4.4 pounds of this every day (1.6 tons every year!)
What is trash?
By bringing along reusable ones of these, the average American family would keep nearly 1,500 of their plastic counterparts out of circulation each year.
What are shopping bags?
Not so fun facts:
~1 trillion single-use plastic bags are used annually worldwide. That's 2 million every minute.
Americans use 100 billion plastic bags a year, which require 12 million barrels of oil to manufacture.
Reproductive problems, neurological damage, immune disease, kidney damage, multiple organ damage, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, asthma, heart disease, and cancer have all been linked to the ingestion of toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A (BPA), found in this pervasive product.
What is plastic?
These are recyclable if 3" or wider in diameter or if attached to a plastic bottle.
What is a plastic lid or cap?
Commonly found on fruits and vegetables identifying the product and country of origin, this needs to be removed before composting.
What is the produce sticker?
8.3 metric tons of this end up in the oceans every year.
What is plastic?
Not so fun facts:
By 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the world's oceans.
1 million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die each year from eating plastic.
Bringing your own reusable one of these will help cut down on the more than 480 billion of these items sold worldwide in 2016 (up from 300 billion ten years earlier).
What are plastic bottles?
Devastating natural disasters such as Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and California's wildfires are becoming more frequent and more severe due to this phenomenon, which 97% of actively publishing climate scientists agree is due to human activity.
What is climate change or global warming?
While technically paper, these products cannot be recycled (but can be composted!)
What are paper towels/napkins?
These words or phrases on food and beverage packaging indicate that it can be commercially composted.
What is "certified compostable" or "PLA" (polylactic acid, made from plant-based materials such as corn or wheat)
This accounts for between 14.5-18 percent of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
What is livestock?
Cutting back on your consumption of this helps the planet by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving an estimated 1,800 to 2,500 gallons of water per pound!
What is beef?
The World Trade Institute estimates damage to this ecosystem to be $13 billion per year.
What is the marine ecosystem?
While not recyclable in most cities, Starbucks-loving Seattle does recycle these to-go containers.
What are coffee cups (or soda cups)? As long as they are clean and dry!
Paper plates, cups, cartons, and to-go boxes with a shiny coating cannot be composted because they contain this.
What is plastic?
Home to around 80% of the world's documented species, this area is quickly disappearing due to logging, farming, ranching, and mining.
What are tropical rainforests?
Over half (141 million metric tons, out of a total of 275 million metric tons) of the world's plastic thrown out in 2015 was used for this purpose.
What is packaging?
You can help cut down on this by consciously choosing products that don't use plastic packaging (or use minimal amounts).
$11.4 billion per year in the United States alone is the estimated value of this wasted resource.
What is the paper, aluminum, glass, plastics, and other recyclable material we throw away each year?