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Archive for Sunday, April 20, 2008

Area resources encourage recycling efforts

Lawrence residents Debbie Galbraith and Joel Wasson make their way down the line depositing their recyclables Tuesday at the Wal-Mart Recycling Center, 3300 Iowa. The city of Lawrence offers many resources for those who wish to recycle.

By Terry Rombeck

April 20, 2008

Lawrence Recycling Guide

Here are locations for dropping off recycling in Lawrence, according to the city's division of waste reduction and recycling.

There are two sides to the recycling story.

The good side: Americans are recycling more. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, around 33 percent of U.S. waste is recycled now. That's double from a decade ago. And some categories are higher, including paper (52 percent) and aluminum cans (45 percent).

The bad side: Americans still sent 169 million tons of trash to landfills in 2006, and much of that could have been recycled.

With Earth Day approaching Tuesday, we've compiled some recycling tips provided by Kathy Richardson, waste reduction and recycling operations supervisor for the city of Lawrence, for use at the Wal-Mart community recycling center, 3300 Iowa.

These tips can help your household become a greener household.

Newspaper & Paper

¢ Advertisement inserts can be recycled along with newspapers.

¢ Keep newspaper and paper clean and dry.

¢ Keep plastic newspaper bags separate from newspaper.

¢ Recyclable paper includes junk mail, colored paper, file folders, envelopes (including those with plastic windows), construction paper, cereal boxes, catalogs and magazines.

Tin & aluminum

¢ Steel "tin" cans must be rinsed.

¢ Labels and lids may be left on.

¢ Aluminum cans and foil can be in this category.

¢ Rinse before recycling.

Cardboard

¢ This category includes corrugated cardboard and paper grocery sacks.

¢ Cardboard must be broken down.

¢ Wax-coated cardboard cannot be accepted.

¢ Labels and tape may be recycled with cardboard.

Plastic bags

¢ Newspaper sleeves, plastic grocery bags and six-pack rings can be accepted.

¢ Bags must be clean.

Plastic bottles

¢ Sort by plastic type, by looking at numbers at bottom of bottles that are enclosed in the recycling-symbol triangle. Nonbottle items such as butter tubs and yogurt containers cannot be recycled here.

¢ Remove lids and rinse bottles. All labels may be left on.

Glass

¢ Jars and bottles that are clear, brown, amber, blue and green may be recycled.

¢ Should be rinsed and sorted by color.

¢ Paper labels may be left on.

Discussion

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20 April 2008
at 9:06 a.m.

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jcinelli (Janet Cinelli) says…

I hope that everyone in Lawrence recycles. If you haven't started recycling, it easy to begin, and it requires just a small investment. Visit your locally owned hardware store and purchase a variety of collection bins. Next print this article, as it provides some great tips for recycling. Then, in the words of Nike, “Just Do It.” Love or hate Walmart, they have a great recycling center, where you often run into friends during your dump. Or, work with a local company who will collect your recycables. Oh, and remember to involve the kids. This is really more about them than us anyway.Please recycle and buy local, too!
20 April 2008
at 10:17 a.m.

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terrapin2 (Anonymous) says…

Cool- Hello? Earth day is Tuesday.No-recycling isn't perfect but we have to start somewhere. It's better then burying our resources underground. Recycling does use energy and resources, which is why reusing, buying local, buying things with less packaging to begin with etc… have to be a part of the solution. Start making people aware of some of these things and maybe things will change. The fact that more people are at least talking about the environment is a positive step.