Every family wants to do its bit for the environment and they are to be commended for that. Having been made aware of the possible consequences of neglecting the environment, people are now taking recycling very seriously indeed. That is excellent news for Mother Nature, indeed, and the environment that she takes care of.
People and businesses are always looking to find a sustainable solution and so it is only natural that we are going to make mistakes along the way. In our attempts to be more environmentally friendly, we try to recycle items that cannot be recycled and so including them in the various bins just complicates everything even more.
You may have taken items to a nearby copper recycling center in Sydney or a scrapyard in your city. There may have been a time wherein you were informed that the things that you have taken to them are totally unsuitable and that you shouldn’t bring those items there again. The people there are just trying to educate you about what you can do to help the environment, and so it is important to know what to put out for recycling and what you shouldn’t put out.
The following are just some of the surprising things that many people think can be recycled but it is highly unlikely that they will be accepted.
- Squeezable Tubes – Some typical examples would be toothpaste and sun cream tubes as these are things that we use on a very regular basis. The thing to remember about toothpaste tubes is that they have a thin layer of aluminium inside and the other parts are made of different types of plastic. Recycling centres are unable to separate and process these things because they don’t have the facilities to do so.
- Drinking Glasses – This is a little bit confusing for many people because the issue is that, drinking glass is similar to a glass bottle and so why shouldn’t they bring it for recycling. The point is that this glass has already been heat-treated and so they won’t melt at the same temperature as glass bottles and jars, for example.
- Pringles Tubes – This is a very popular snack and so people wrongfully assume that it is ripe for recycling, but the opposite is actually true. Pringles are currently working on the problem but for now this tube combines five different types of materials and so it is a recycler’s nightmare.
- Cotton Wool & Other Make Up Pads – People think that because these things are made from cotton, that these can be recycled. However, these are completely different from the T-shirt, for example, that you put in your bin. Once they are used to remove make up or they are used with other chemicals, they should be left out and put into your general waste bin to make recycling easier.
Even though plastic is one of the top things that we like to recycle, bags that contain certain foods are difficult because these consist of many different types of plastic combined together. This makes the separating and the processing a lot more difficult.