Is Your Bin Naughty or Nice this Christmas?

Is Your Bin Naughty or Nice this Christmas?

Wrapping paper is a tricky item to know whether it can be recycled or not. You have to ask yourself a couple questions like whether it is glittery or metallic before you can put it up.

As Santa makes his list and checks it twice, how about we do the same for our recyclables? There can be a lot of confusion over what holiday items to recycle and what to throw away since some of the items aren’t used on a day to day basis. Americans generate 25% more waste during the holiday season. It’s important that we understand where that waste goes so we don’t take up more space in the landfill than is necessary. Read through this list to figure out whether your recycling looks naughty or nice this year, and don’t forget to check twice in your bin!

It’s always good to start off with the nice. After you make Santa’s midnight snack of milk and cookies, make sure your do a quick rinse of your milk jug and put it in the recycling bin. While you’re at it, take any paperboard boxes (such as a cookie mix box) and put that in for recycling as well. You may be using a lot of bi-metal cans which is the type of can that your soup comes in or aluminum cans for drinks as you feast through the holidays. All of those cans can be put in the recycling bin as well!

And now on to those pesky naughty items that somehow always make their way to the wrong spot. If you are doing any baking this year, you may have an excess of cartons for milk or juice and probably at least a few plastic tubs. None of these items can be recycled here. Though you can’t see it, all cartons have a thin plastic lining inside which helps contain the liquids. Currently, it is impossible to remove this lining and therefore it cannot be recycled. It is helpful to remember that we only accept plastic bottles and jugs.  Any plastic receptacle that has a skinnier “neck” and a larger “body” such as laundry detergent bottles, soap bottles, and milk jugs are fine to recycle, but tubs such as the butter tubs or yogurt cups do not have a “neck” and cannot be recycled here. This is due to equipment and the different processes that go into making jugs and bottles versus tubs and buckets.

Wrapping paper, cards, and tissue paper can be naughty or nice. If those items have glitter on them or are the very shiny metallic type, they will go in your trash can. All other wrapping paper, tissues, and cards go in the recycling even if they are heavily dyed. The ribbons and bows we tie them up in, is a different story. Those will always be naughty. Those are what people in the recycling business refer to as “tanglers” because they can get tangled up in the equipment and even halt production in recycling facility as workers have to stop the equipment and pull the tanglers out. If you’ve ever gotten some kind of string or wrap stuck in your vacuum and had to pull it out of the bottom for it to work again, you know the kind of process they have to use to get our equipment back up and running too. 

Another confusing, and much bigger item, is your Christmas tree. If you have an artificial Christmas tree, there is no way to recycle it and it has to be put in a landfill. I encourage you to use it as long as possible to decrease its environmental impact. If you have a live Christmas tree, you can save the date of January 4th from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. We will be working with the Home Depot on 875 Shugart Rd. and Whitfield County Public Works to recycle natural Christmas trees and old electronics. 

With a little bit of knowledge, we can make sure our recycling ends up on the nice list this year and know that we are helping to cut down on the space we are taking up in the landfill unnecessarily.