All That Glitters…

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that household waste in the US increases 20-25% between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. That equates to approximately 1 million extra tons per week.

By avoiding certain items, and carefully disposing of, or recycling, other items, we can all help bring that number down.

• Tinsel, metallic cards/wrapping paper, and anything with glitter (it’s a microplastic!) = Garbage.
• Packing materials like plastic wrap, bubble wrap, air pillows, and styrofoam = Garbage.
• Brown craft packaging paper can be repurposed as a garden weed barrier; shredded or torn for a ‘brown’ in your compost or worm composting bin; or reused as packaging materials – otherwise, it goes into Mixed Recycling.
• Packaging pads labeled as “Recyclable” (like the ones you get from Amazon) = Garbage. Many of these have filler that is not actually recyclable.
• Cardboard depends on whether or not it’s corrugated (you can see wavy lines when looking at an edge), or not. If you don’t see the wavy lines, it’s not corrugated and  it goes into Mixed Recycling! Read this tutorial on Recycling Tips for more details.
• Christmas trees (remove all decorations & tinsel and without fake frost) = Yard/Green Waste.

When in doubt…throw it out! (into the Garbage)