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.

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.