The Most Common Recyclable Items

Glass

• Recycling glass is beneficial to the environment, as the production of new glass is energy-intensive. Glass is inert, meaning that it does not degrade once dumped. It is 100 percent recyclable, and the energy saved by reusing it is considerable. Once collected at bottle banks, glass needs to be sorted into different colors and washed out. After it has been crushed down and melted at a treatment plant, it can be turned into a new product.

Paper

• Paper products such as magazines and newspapers, as well as cardboard, are widely recycled. However, gummed paper, such as envelopes, is not always recyclable. Paper collected for recycling is delivered to a paper mill, where it is sorted, then pulped and cleaned, to ready it for reuse as new paper. Recycling waste paper helps to limit the destruction of forests and means that less methane, a gas that accelerates climate-change, is released into the atmosphere.

Metal Cans

• Aluminum and tin cans are both widely recycled. Recycling an aluminum can uses only 5 percent of the energy involved in creating the metal from bauxite. Cans collected for recycling can be melted down and returned to stores in a new form within six weeks. Whereas tin cans and aluminum cans are collected for recycling together, they are separated out using magnets before they are melted down.

Plastic

• The use of plastic has increased drastically in the past 50 years, which in turn, has increased the amount of fossil fuels used to create it. The American Society of Plastics Industry has created a standard code to identify recyclable plastics, and these markings are included on containers to inform consumers. Plastics collected for recycling are sorted, washed and ultimately melted down to be remolded.