Recycling Served Five Ways

We’re all about reduction and re-usage over here, but let’s face it — with all the product already floating around out there in the world, recycling is not just encouraged, but vital and crucial and necessary. Most people know to separate out their aluminum foil and plastic bottles from the rest of their trash, but at the Janesville Gazette in Wisconsin, reporter Kayla Bunge sounds off on five items that not everyone knows are recyclable and what steps you can take to make them so.

Computer printer cartridges

Alarming fact: Each year, more than 1 billion ink and toner cartridges are sold worldwide, and more than 500 million cartridges are used in the United States alone, according to the EPA. Only 5 percent of ink and toner cartridges are recycled; the rest end up in landfills, polluting the environment with plastic, metal and chemicals.

Where to recycle it: Some national retailers accept empty ink and toner cartridges, including:

– Staples, 2900 Deerfield Drive, Janesville. HP, Dell and Lexmark cartridges are accepted in exchange for $3 in Staples Rewards.

– Best Buy, 2850 Deerfield Drive, Janesville.

A number of Web sites pay cash for empty printer cartridges—an increasingly popular fundraising scheme—and recycle them. Check out Planet Green (www.planetgreenrecycle.com), which accepts both printer cartridges and cell phones and offers a fundraising program for both items.

Among the others mentioned are cell phones and, of course, the ubiquitous disposable plastic bag. (That one, dear reader, you should already know by now is recyclable! …To a degree, anyway.) Interested in doing your part beyond the blue bin? Check it out! You’ll never look at your house junk the same way again.

Photo via Flickr!

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 at 9:32 am and is filed under The Daily. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.