How to Set up a Recycling System in your Home | Recycling Tips

The first thing to do before organizing and starting up a recycling system is to evaluate how much your household consumes in a week. To do this, keep all of your recyclables aside in a trash barrel or large container of some sort. Here are some containers that you should be saving:

• Metal cans


• Plastic bottles (milk jugs, water bottles, etc)


• Laundry detergent bottles


• Cardboard of all kinds (cardboard boxes from food are a big one)


• Glass bottles (wine, pickle jars, jelly)


• Paper products (junk mail, newspaper, printouts)

At the end of the week, divide the above into these categories:

• #1 Plastics (read the number on the bottom)


• #2 Plastics


• Cardboard


• Paper


• Glass


• Metal


• Other plastics

Most likely your #1 plastics will be the most full, then cardboard and #2 plastics. Take a large trash barrel and put all of your #1 plastics into the barrel. If they fit with plenty of room left for more, you most likely won't need more than one barrel for your #1 plastics. Repeat the process for your #2 plastics, cardboard, metal, and other plastics. This should tell you how much you'll be consuming and how often these containers will fill up.

Only you know how often you'll be headed to the recycling station, so keep in mind how often these containers will be emptied.

The most common type of containers used for recycling are given out in some towns for free. However, for those of us without that perk, you can use large plastic storage bins, garbage barrels, or any other waterproof container (these will get wet!).

If you don't go to the recycling center often, you may want to give trash barrels a try. If you don't consume much, or you empty often, small plastic containers might do the trick.

Labeling your bins is easy. You could either use blank stickers, or you can place a sign above each barrel/bin to let everyone know what belongs there. You might be able to get away with combining bins on metal cans and glass since they're small (and not used as often nowadays). And that's all there is to your recycling system! Now that wasn't so hard, was it?