With recycling centers being widespread and available to the public, consumers are taking advantage of this opportunity to make money where they hadn’t considered before: Inside their own recycling bins. Each time a can or bottle is thrown into recycling bins, it transforms into change that collects in a piggy bank. Before they know it, some people have accumulated hundreds of dollars with of bottles and cans, just waiting to be redeemed for cash.

Why Should I Recycle My Own Items?

With the average redemption value for bottles and cans being between 5 cents for smaller containers and 10 cents for larger containers, it makes perfect sense to store these items in recycling bins until they are full. The amount of waste that is discarded from cans, bottles, packaging and other items can add up quicker than some people realize.

The average payout for a four person family per year is $180.50, which may not seem like much, but that is at the rate of 2 drink containers a day per person, as well as one large container per week being recycled. For larger families, or for individuals or groups that consume large amounts of food or drink that is packaged in recyclable materials, the payout can be much, much larger. And all of that money is money that would have gone out on trash pick up day.

Getting started

The most effective way to recycle on your own would be to have separate recycling bins for different materials. By dividing paper and cardboard, plastic, glass and metal into their own recycling bins, it will make it much easier on you when you get to the recycling center. Recycling centers have large conveyor belts that weigh the items before dumping them into giant recycling bins, and each station is specified for particular materials.

By separating your items into recycling bins beforehand, you will undoubtedly save yourself a lot of time at the recycling center. After your items are weighed, you will receive a printed voucher, which you simply bring inside to redeem for your money.

By investing a little bit of money into new recycling bins and a small amount of your time, you may be able to see a pretty nice sized return on your recyclables. This is money that you may have been throwing out on trash day, so why not keep it for yourself so you can invest in something you really want?

As more teachers are boosting their efforts in encouraging kids to recycle, reduce, and reuse, we would like to share some ideas for making a lasting impression on children when it comes to recycling. Kids thrive from hands-on activity, rewards and incentive, so why not combine all three into your teaching approach? By simply making it fun for kids to recycle, we believe that teachers will see more effort from their students to participate in classroom recycling programs.

Turn Recycling Into a Team Effort

There are plenty of fun activities and crafts for children to do using nothing but recyclable products. You can have your students design shirts, posters, and recycling containers with the ‘recycle, reduce, reuse’ theme. Students can then hang their posters over the recycling containers all over the school, thus reminding other students to join them in their efforts in reducing waste.

As the bottles, cans and other recyclable materials fill the recycling containers, teachers can take the items to a local recycling center and redeem them for cash. As the school year progresses, the profits can really add up!

Send Them On a Treasure Hunt for Trash

Students can also collect recyclables from friends and neighbors and set up small recycling containers at home. Students can collect items for their recycling containers, bringing the cans and bottles in for recycling.

Turn Trash Into Fun

At the end of the year, teachers can take all of the money that has been collected from students’ recycling efforts and throw the students a party. This is a great incentive for kids to recycle, because now they realty get to enjoy their reward. Include food, drinks and games for your students to play, all with a recycling theme.

Some fun games to play at the party include a coffee can coin toss, where students toss coins into an old coffee can. Students can also go ‘miniature bowling,’ using a ball and empty two-liter bottles as pins. You can also set up hoops over recycling containers and have students shoot crushed up cans into it. Also, students can be divided into teams to construct the largest tower they can out of cardboard and other recyclable materials — the tallest tower that doesn’t fall over wins.

Teachers can hold a contest where students make crafts out of materials found inside recycling containers. The most creative craft takes the prize.

All of the food and activities are either paid for by taking the recycling containers to a recycling center, or brought in by students from home. Kids will love seeing their efforts pay off, and they will carry the memories of the party with them for years to come. This should help to create waste reducing habits that can last a lifetime.

Putting More Than Just Paper Into Recycling Bins

Many offices utilize recycling containers for paper trash. However, going green involves utilizing your recycling bins for much more than scrap printer paper. Green offices today find ways to recycle as much of their waste as possible.

Magazines, newspapers, and cardboard boxes are all very common in many offices and they should be dedicated recycling bins for all of these items as well. Electronic waste is also prevalent in many offices. Electronics have to be properly disposed of and cannot go directly in the trash. This includes old computers, printer, copiers, company cell phones, toner cartridges, and any other electronic devices. Contact your local recycling center or check with city hall to learn the right way to recycle electronic waste.

In your office cafeteria, canteen, or break room, make sure you provide recycling containers for plastic bottles, aluminum cans, and any other recyclable food packaging.

Saving Money And The Environment By Using Less

A key initiative for many offices is a focus on reducing costs. Reducing the amount of materials used in an office to reduce costs goes hand in hand with green programs to reduce the amount of commercial waste generated. Here are a just a few great tips to reduce material usage, save costs, and prevent our country’s landfills from overflowing:

• Share magazines, newspapers, and trade articles between departments
• Use electronic billboards, memorandums, and posters instead of paper ones
• Print unimportant documents on scrap paper
• Enable double sided printing
• Provide porcelain mugs in the break room rather than disposable Styrofoam cups
• Install motion sensor lights that automatically shut off at the end of the day to reduce electricity usage

Promoting A Green Culture

The most important parts of all of these programs and techniques are participation and the right company culture. Rallying employees around recycling bins and green programs helps to create a sense of civic pride. Stress to employees that they are participating in making their own neighborhoods cleaner and greener. Stress to management that green programs show corporate stewardship of the environment on a local and global scale.

In the end, it is vital to lead by example; this will encourage participation and display how important a green office really is. Make it easy for employees to take part and really feel a sense of ownership. In addition, today’s recycling bins and programs are designed to be more convenient and attractive. At the end of the day, people feel good about working in a green office.

Keeping Recycling Bins Clean In The First Place

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so one of the best ways to keep your recycling containers clean is to clean waste before it hits the bin. Thoroughly washing all of your recyclables is much more than you really need to do; it is amazing how a quick rinse of your recyclables before you dispose of them will keep your recycling containers cleaner longer.

If you store recycling containers outside, you will want to use a container that has a drain to let rainwater flow out rather than accumulate in the bottom. You can also drill a small hole yourself into existing recycling bins. Either way, this will help keep your receptacles cleaner.

You can also use a liner in your recycling bins just like a normal waste can. The only catch is if you sort your recyclables, you have to make sure to not throw away a plastic liner along with your newspaper or glass bottle recycling. In the end, it is easier to keep recycling bins with liners clean.

Green Cleaning Products To Use On Your Recycling Containers

Since you’ve embraced green living by participating in a recycling program, you might as well continue that trend by using green cleaning products on your bins. Baking soda makes for an excellent natural cleaner that can be found in nearly every home.

To clean recycling bins with baking soda, sprinkle a light coating into the bin itself. Dampen the baking soda and then lightly scrub the interior of the container with a rag or floor mop. Use a hose to spray rinse out the bin and then leave the container in the sun, on its side, to dry.

Creating Green Cleaners From Things Around The House

There are numerous household items that you can use as a cleaner without dumping chemicals and toxins into the environment. Vinegar is a good all purpose cleaner that you can use on your recycling bins. Mix a quarter cup of distilled white vinegar with a quart of water to make a quick and easy all purpose cleaner. Using hot water works even better if you want to make the mixture fresh for a specific cleaning job, but making a large batch and leaving it at room temperature works well too.

If you miss the scents and fragrances of most cleaners, you can easily make your own scented, green cleaners. Adding just one drop of essential oils (found in natural food stores) to your cleaning solution will give you the scent you are used to. You can even add a dash of lemon juice to achieve a similar affect.

Green cleaning and recycling go hand in hand — combining both of them is a big step in the direction of living a greener life.

What Can Be Placed In Recycling Bins?

Every municipality has different requirements for waste management. Find out first if your town uses single stream recycling or multi-stream. A single stream means that recyclables do not have to be separated and can all be placed together in recycling bins. Conversely, a multi-stream program requires separate recycling containers for each type of recyclable.

The most common items that are recycled in a school are aluminum cans, plastic bottles, cardboard containers, and paper. Plan to utilize enough recycling bins to contain each type of item with sufficient capacity. Brainstorm where these recycling containers needs to be placed, such as in the classrooms, cafeteria, by vending machines, library, gym, athletic fields and seating, as well as administrative offices and teachers’ lounges.

How Will Recycling Containers Be Placed?

After determining what type of program and what needs to be recycled, the next question is location. The more convenient recycling becomes the greater participation that will be achieved. This goes for both students and faculty.

Recycling bins should be situated as close as possible to where waste is generated. Paper recycling containers should be near copiers and printers as well as where students might clean out their notebooks. Plastic bottle recycling containers should be in the cafeteria and near vending machines. In general, recycling bins should be in high traffic areas, clearly visible, and close to wherever trash is generated.

Collecting Waste From Recycling Bins

All of the waste has to be gathered into one place for pickup and disposal. While janitorial staff can handle this task, schools will need additional large scale recycling containers for use alongside regular dumpsters. These have to be sited as well. Waste Wise, in addition to our smaller recycling containers, also offers large scale recycling bins for this purpose.

Hauling Away The Waste

Once the recyclables have been gathered and are ready for disposal, one last step remains. The waste has to be picked up and taken to a recycling center. This can happen in a number of ways depending on whether the municipality has a local recycling center and public trash haulers or if a private company has to be contracted for haul away. Look for low cost solutions, including utilizing grant and incentive money or a private hauler who will pay for or discount recycling bins haul away.

A well structured recycling plan, once presented to administration, is much more likely to be approved and will have a greater impact on the school and the environment. Setting up a school recycling program isn’t just good for the environment today — the impact you’ll have on the way tomorrow’s leaders value the environment will have an immeasurable impact on the world tomorrow.

Waste Wise products is proud to offer plenty of advice as well as a full line of recycling bins and recycling containers designed to make your job that much easier.

Sort Trash Into Recycling Bins Each Day

For those in multi stream programs, sorting is often cited as the biggest hassle. While sorting your recyclables can become a chore, there are a few easy ways to speed up the process.

The best way to handle sorting is little by little. There is nothing worse than sitting outside the evening before pickup picking through a week’s worth of old trash. Sort recyclables as they become trash and you will never have to pick through recycling container again.

The best recycling bins for handling this kind of sorting are a set that can be clipped together. This type of recycling bins makes sorting easy while keeping all recyclables in one area. Once it is time for pick up or a trip to the local recycling center, each recycling container can be handled and hauled separately. Nesting recycling bins are another good option if space is tight — the recycling bins can be easily handled when sorting.

Keep The Load Light In Your Recycling Bins

Single stream programs are more straightforward since there is no sorting required. However, homeowners often pile all of their recyclable into a single recycling container. When it comes time to actually move their garbage bins along with their recycling bins, it becomes a major hassle.

The best way to keep the weight of your recycling bins low is to utilize two or three recycling containers. Waste Wise offers a number of heavy duty recycling bins that can either clip together, nest within each other, or be clipped on as a rider. This way, all recyclables can be kept in one area and then each recycling container can be handled on its own.

Utility carts with wheels also make for effective recycling bins in a single stream program. They can be wheeled to the curb or to the truck.

Get Your Neighbors Involved

It is always easier to get a recycling program started when the entire community embraces it. Many municipalities receive grants and funding based on the total amount of recyclables that they process. So the more recycling bins you can get into the homes in your neighborhood, the more money your town will have to spend on public amenities.

In the end, effective programs boil down to convenience. Easy to use recycling bins and recycling containers help get people involved in doing a good thing for their community and the environment in general. We design all of our recycling bins with this in mind.

Single Stream Programs And The Right Recycling Containers

If all of your recyclables go into a single receptacle, then you are part of a single stream program. All of the sorting is done at a processing facility so residents and businesses do not have to separate their recycling prior to pick up. This type of program is by far the most simple and convenient in which to participate. They are also attractive for the city that implements them. Government funding and incentives for recycling programs are based on the amount of material that is recycled overall. So by making it easy to participate, everyone in a community can help clean up their city and earn money to spend on public amenities.

Waste Wise has a number of different recycling bins for homeowners and businesses in this type of system. The biggest concern is to provide adequate space for all recyclables. Recycling containers have to be large enough to hold all the recyclable trash that is generated between each pick up. Utility carts with attached wheels are an excellent solution since they are also easy to transport even if they are full.

Recycling Bins For Multi Stream Programs

If you are sorting recycled trash and separating by material, than you are part of a multi stream program. Multi stream recycling does take a little extra effort, but utilizing the right set of recycling bins makes the task much easier. Waste Wise has a great line of recycling containers with this type of program in mind.

Convenience is king when it comes to sorting and separating. With this in mind, Waste Wise offers recycling containers designed to fit any need. For example, we have receptacles that can clip together, stack, or nest. We also offer riders that can be attached to regular garbage cans to collect different materials all at once. All of our offerings come in many different shapes and sizes to fit any home of office space both indoors and outdoors.

What Recycling Containers To Use At Home And In The Office

One of our best products for recycling in the office is recycling containers with special lids and openings designed to take specific materials. For example, having openings in the shape of plastic bottles or aluminum cans, making it very easy to immediately distinguish what garbage goes into what bin. These large capacity, multi compartment recycling containers are an effective all in one solution.

For homeowners, a set of stacking or nesting recycling containers works exceptionally well. They save space and can fit in the garage, under a car port, right outside the back door, or in nearly any space available. Other homeowners choose to purchase recycling bins as riders that they can attached to their regular trash cans to keep all of their garbage in one spot.

No matter which program our customers happen to be in, Waste Wise prides itself on providing the best recycling bins for every situation.

Have you ever asked yourself any of these questions before? What are the differences between these numbers on plastic products, can I recycle them all together? Does it matter if I mix paper waste from the office with newspapers and magazines? Should I sort out each different type of scrap metal and color of glass before disposing of them?

Ultimately, Waste Wise Products helps to solve the problems with innovative bins for recycling designed to make multi-stream waste management programs easier to handle and participate in.

Stop Recycling The Old Way

The old way of recycling is to let garbage pile up in bins and then sort everything out for the collectors; this usually happens the night before collection. This is why many residential programs had trouble getting off the ground.

The old method for sorting waste into recycling containers effectively meant you were disposing of your garbage twice and wasting a lot of time in the process. A company of any appreciable size would quickly get buried underneath their recyclables if they tried to sort by hand. So as recycling technology advanced, so must recycling methods in the home and office.

Waste Wise Products Offers The Right Recycling Containers For The Job

It turns out the best way to make multi-stream recycling easy again was to have the right bins for recycling. Our recycling containers have been designed with ease of use in mind. Homeowners and businesses alike find it much easy to participate in their local programs with the right bins for recycling on site.

Waste Wise recycling containers are designed in a number of ways to make them easy to use. Custom opening are shaped like the materials that are supposed to be recycled, like aluminum cans and plastic bottles. Many of our products come with multiple, integrated compartments within a single unit that are all clearly labeled for sorting on the spot. Clip on compartments and riders for recycling containers can turn any bin into multi-stream bins for recycling.

Every size and shape imaginable is produced in order to fit any floor plan or available space, whether it takes a tall and skinny or short and squat solution.

Getting Everyone On Board With Customized Recycling Containers

Waste Wise customizes and personalizes bins for recycling with slogans, lettering, and logos. What does this have to do with effective recycling programs? Individualized recycling containers are a great way for businesses to encourage participation at the office or even sponsor a program in the community. It builds pride to see personalized recycling containers that help make a positive impact on the local environment and community.

Waste Wise provides the latest in today’s trends in functional and customized bins for recycling in order to get the most out of multi-stream waste programs.

Reducing the cost of collecting, storing, transporting and disposing of garbage can save your company, school, or event a substantial amount of money. An estimated 60% to 80% of what was once considered ‘trash’ is actually recyclable. Imagine cutting your trash expense by 80% and then selling the recycled materials at a profit. The University of Washington medical Center was able to reduce its landfill costs by over $78,000 and then sold recycled paper and cardboard for over $32,000. That’s a net positive result of over $110,000 in a single year!

Educating The Masses About Messes

There have already been plenty of educational efforts with regards to recyclable materials and protecting the environment. Instead of having to reinvent the wheel, your company or organization can take advantage of the efforts of others by simply reminding potential participants of what they have already been taught about what can be placed in your recycling containers and what cannot.

Clearly labeled recycling bins encourage participation by making the decision-making process that much easier. Cans and bottles are easily placed in recycling containers that feature round openings in the top, whereas paper and cardboard is inserted into slot-shaped openings. This convenience encourages usage and minimizes misuse, cuts your costs and eliminates mess.

Select Shapes And Colors Best Suited For Your Locations

Light years beyond the battered metal trashcans of the 1970′s, today’s receptacles are attractively built from recycled plastic. These units do not crack, peel, or rust, and they provide years of attractive and functional service. Color selection can be made based on a company color scheme, an event logo, or a community crest, providing a visually appealing container that simply begs to be used for its intended purpose. Unlike the traditional greens of the 1980′s, today’s recycling containers come in every color, shape, size, and style imaginable, allowing you to select the best product for your application.

Proper Placement Promotes Participation

Placing bins where they are highly visible and convenient to approach greatly improves participation. Since today’s receptacles are so well designed and labeled, they are far more likely to be used for their intended purpose, instead of as a trash can. Small bins can be used to increase convenience under desks, close to printers and copiers, in lunchrooms and conference rooms. Factories can generate a substantial increase in raw material sales when recycling containers are placed within the factory along the manufacturing route to collect misprinted labels, improperly cut boxes, and faulty cans or bottles.

Using color, placement, style, and location to your advantage can turn a moderately successful program into a financial boon to your company, school, community or event. Significant reductions in garbage costs and increased income from the sale of these useful materials work together to raise your bottom line. The improved public image and goodwill are sure to result in an increase in sales, adding yet another good reason to institute a recycling program at your school, business, and community today.

Focus On Capacity

The right recycling containers have to be properly sized; if they are too large they will waste space and not reach capacity before pickup. Recycling bins that are too small won’t work as waste spills over onto the ground. In order to determine the proper capacity, keep these factors in mind. First, determine the pickup schedule. Second, choose whether to have a large number of small units that can be emptied into one larger piece or have recycling bins that can stand on their own. Keep in mind that these units can be heavy when they are full, try using smaller pieces or recycling bins with wheels, especially in high traffic areas.

Ease Of Use And Collection

Recycling bins are much more than just receptacles that are meant to sit around taking up space. In order to have an effective program in place, each unit has to be matched to its function and be easy to handle. For residential setups, the overall weight of recyclables has to be kept reasonable for a single person to handle. Office and school implementations should also keep an eye towards efficiency with wheeled utility units instead of having significant manpower required to move a set of recycling bins for collection.

Materials Of Construction

Like any purchase, high quality recycling bins will have a long service life and are worth the investment. For the ultimate in green solutions, Waste Wise offers recycled plastic recycling bins. Mold injected plastic units also exhibit good durability for long lasting service in the home, office, or school setting.

Sorting Multi Stream Programs

A common complaint from people is the perceived complexity of multi stream systems. One of the best ways to address this problem is with recycling containers that have multiple slots and compartments for each different stream with intuitive visual cues. People will participate more and feel a sense of involvement when they are easily able to sort their waste.

Recycling Containers That Look Good While Doing The Job

Especially for office and school programs, having attractive recycling containers plays an important role for high participation and pride in a program. Waste Wise offers custom fiberglass units that can be adorned with company logos and slogans as well as school colors and mascots. A sense of ownership goes a long way to creating highly effective programs.

These five points cover a lot of ground when implementing a waste disposal program for residential, commercial, and school use. In the end, the right recycling containers are important for the success of any recycling initiative.

Here, we’ll take a look at how recycling containers and community programs help people and the environment at all levels, and how we can utilize recycling bins from Waste Wise Products to maximize the impact of these programs.

Benefits of Recycling Programs To Our Economy And Environment

It is a common myth that recycling programs cost more money than regular trash disposal services. Overall, recycling programs save taxpayer money, reduce energy usage, and create jobs and business opportunities. As time goes by and more cities implement green initiatives, the cost of recycling goes down across the board.

Recycling programs create a multitude of job opportunities. There are an estimated 1.1 million jobs created every year. For each one of these jobs created, another 26 people are hired to process recycled materials into new products. On the whole, recycling creates four new jobs in the place of every one job created in the standard waste disposal industry.

These programs also save money; recycling costs less than land filling and incineration. With lowered costs and pay-as-you-throw options, a family can see lowered local taxes. By repurposing waste into new products, we can reduce our dependence on oil while lowering our energy usage.

These energy savings are significant — it takes 95% less energy to recycle aluminum than it does to make it from raw materials, while recycled steel saves 60%, recycled newspaper 40%, recycled plastics 70%, and recycled glass 40%.

How Good Recycling Bins Makes A Difference

The type of recycling containers used in homes, offices, and in public spaces really determines how cost effective a recycling program will be.

Using recycling bins with multiple compartments is an excellent way to help pre-sort different materials and aid in collection and processing. All-in-one recycling containers come in many sizes to be used within a home, office, or placed in public areas. Waste Wise carries recycling containers that can also be snapped together or attached to one another for multi-stream usage without having one large container. For businesses, fiberglass recycling containers can be customized with a business logo or corporate slogan.

For industrial work, roll out cart and utility recycling bins are the best bet due to their rugged construction. They are designed for both heavy duty work and for garbage hauling. Steel recycling containers can offer both a sturdy solution with a modern look, perfect for the office setting. Attractive ashtray containers can be placed in any lobby, break room, or designated smoking area.

Having the right recycling bins for the right job help people to be comfortable when new programs are initiated. They also help keep costs low and make material separation easier. Does your home, office, and community have a recycling program? Is it working as well as it could? Contact us to learn about how you can implement recycling bins in your home, work place, or neighborhood and create a positive impact on the environment and the community.

With these needs in minds, recycling bins are being constructed from many materials, including fiberglass, plastic, recycled plastic lumber, and steel and are in use for single stream, multi-stream, and utility programs. Let’s take a look at how the right pairing between container and program makes waste management easier and more effective.

Individual Offices And Homes

There are many available recycling bins to fit small scale programs or many small capacity locations, such as individual offices. There are a number of both plastic and fiberglass solutions that offer light weight and durable recycling containers to fit in under desks or behind doors.

Desksiders are the single stream, blue plastic containers that are common in many offices. A smaller easy sorter bin can be attached to the lip of the larger basket to separate two different recyclables. Duo recyclers are two compartment, low profile bins perfect for under the desk placement. Larger fiberglass multi compartment containers with custom lids can be used in conference rooms or shared offices.

Large Scale, Multi-Stream Applications

On the other end of the spectrum, large collection points and city-wide programs require larger and more durable containers that can be used both indoors and outdoors. Typically, all-in-one collection units are preferred to convenience.

These units come in fiberglass, plastic, and steel. All three types offer rugged designs for high traffic and high volume use. The largest fiberglass bins for recycling come in at 92 gallons with up to 4 internal compartments to handle a high degree of separation and volume. Plastic bins are also manufactured in all-in-one units as well as sets of single stream containers. Steel designs usually focus on multiple single stream containers that come together in a set. There are also larger multipurpose units that are best suited for large municipal projects.

Industrial Programs

Bins for recycling utilized in industrial and large commercial or hospitality waste management programs, many of the above designs can work. However, there are specially made solutions for heavy duty work.

Roll out carts are a good choice for such a project. The carts are made from high strength injection molded plastics and come built with attached dollies and grips. They are ideal for collection and storage along with transportation. All-in-one units constructed from steel will also meet the requirements of large scale programs where their size, weight, and capacity are beneficial.

Waste Wise Products offers a wide variety in recycling bins in order to make implementing waste management programs easier. Participants will be more invested in a recycling program that is convenient and purpose built.

Time For A Trash Audit

A trash audit is a simple act that you can do at home. Basically, it consists of sorting through your trash to see how much recyclable materials you are currently throwing into your neighborhood landfill. Most people are stunned when they realize the extent of their past wastefulness. As garbage rates continue to rise, it becomes even more cost effective to recycle whatever you can. Simply placing recycling containers next to trash cans and educating family members may be all the effort that is required to create a successful recycling program in your home.

Businesses can use their local recycling service to conduct a trash audit. Offices, manufacturers and service companies produce volumes of recyclable materials that have been historically thrown into landfills, resulting in toxic air, soil, and water supplies. A trash audit provides business owners and managers with the financial numbers they need to make effective decisions about how many bins for recycling they will need for their facility.

Special Tips For Reducing Waste

At home, you can reduce much of your paper waste by cancelling unwanted subscriptions and reusing the backs of documents for things like shopping lists and to-do notes. When shopping, opt for minimal packaging and bigger quantities of frequently purchased items. Placing recycling bins where they are most needed, such as next to a desk and in the kitchen can increase their likelihood of being used.

Businesses can use the same basic rational by placing bins for recycling where they are most needed: in employee break rooms, near printers, under desks, near vending machines and near any manufacturing processes that generate recyclable materials. These simple steps can turn into a landslide of savings, both financial and environmental.

Back In The Black

In today’s troubled economy, homes and businesses are operating on the brink of financial disaster. Every area where money can be saved is worth consideration. Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle installed recycling bins and was then delighted to discover that they were able to reduce their contribution to the landfill by 80% and that they saved themselves over $170,000 in the first year of the program. Those are some substantial numbers.

Today’s recycling bins are clearly labeled with which recyclables go where, or if it is a single stream service, all types of recyclable materials can be deposited into the same container. Recycling today makes sense, and best of all saves a lot of money.

Fiberglass Recycling Bins

Fiberglass bins for recycling have been around for generations, but have only recently caught on as a popular choice for recycling bins. Their popularity can be at least partially attributed to their pleasing looks and their non-bulky construction. Typically, these bins range in size from about 55 gallons to 73 gallons, which makes them a little smaller than many other recycling bins. While some may see smaller size as a drawback, many businesses and schools find the size makes the bins more versatile and much easier to integrate into a business.

Recycled Plastic Bins For Recycling

It seems like a novel idea: recycle your used goods in a recycled recycling bin. That is the beauty of a plastic recycling bin. As a product of what it promotes, plastic bins lead by example. They are also a versatile bin and a fitting container for many different types of refuse. From plastics to glass and paper to lumber, plastic bins are very versatile and can be designed to fit many different styles, shapes, budgets, and uses.

At Waste Wise, we sell recycled plastic recycling bins for use on city streets, inside lunchrooms at schools and offices, and for private use. Please contact us for more information on these versatile and customizable bins for recycling.

Steel Constructed Recycling Bins

Of course, nothing is more synonymous with strength than steel. At Waste Wise, we offer steel constructed recycling bins that can be tailored to almost any space. Steel bins for recycling can be constructed in almost any way, from very large and high capacity to smaller and lower capacity. They can also be made to fit the nooks and crannies of an office, lunchroom, or anywhere in need of recycling.

As opposed to the molding of both plastic and fiberglass, steel construction allows these recycling bins to be more versatile and more attractive to many consumers. The construction also allows these bins to be great for both outdoor and indoor applications. The consumer or businesses making the purchase can many times dictate the bin’s design and number of openings. This makes them the perfect bins for schools, businesses, and activity centers.

However, current recycling programs still ask that people sort their recyclables into various containers. Though this may not seem ‘difficult,’ studies have shown that single stream recycling containers increases household recycling significantly.

How Single Stream Recycling Containers and Programs Work

With single stream recycling containers, all recycled materials are collected in a single bin and then sorted at the recycling facility. The city of Boston recently conducted a 4-month study with single stream recycling and the results were surprising. During the study period, single stream recycling bins resulted in 40% less trash in the landfills and increased recycling by 20%.

There are numerous reasons why single stream bins lead to increased recycling volumes among homeowners. Multiple recycling bins consume more space and many people, particularly those in smaller city homes, don’t have the extra space for multiple recycling containers. It may be easier to throw away garbage than to keep 4 recycling containers below the sink. Also, many areas offer recycling of some materials, but not all. One neighborhood may offer glass and paper recycling, but not plastic recycling. With single stream recycling, homeowners have the option to recycle more types of materials.

Less work sorting on the part of homeowners means increased work at the recycling facility. The process isn’t all manual. Recycling depots use a variety of techniques, such as magnets or electronic sorters to compartmentalize the materials. Many recycling facilities already engaged in sorting in order to weed out non-recyclable materials — and have these processes in place already.

Municipal Cost Savings of Single Stream Recycling

The program not only resulted in significant environmental impact, but cost savings as well. The city of Boston estimates an annual $750,000 savings based on the savings incurred during the 4-month trial period. Fewer household recycling bins mean that cities incur fewer materials costs. Fewer trucks to pick up different types of recyclables also drastically reduce the overhead costs of recycling. Fewer recycling depots mean fewer costs as well. The man-hours and processing cost-per-ton are significantly reduced with single stream recycling depots.

However, implementation of any new program always comes with an initial investment. While single stream recycling may be less expensive in the long run, cities may need to make various investments to start the process including larger trucks, automation machines, and training are just a few of those start up costs.

Environmental Impact

Beyond financial costs, there are environmental costs to consider. A 40% decrease in garbage hitting landfills is a significantly reduced impact on the environment, so long as processing those recycled material does not cause more environmental harm than a landfill. Fewer recycling depots mean less energy consumption and a greener footprint. As a provider of recycling bins in Toronto, our ultimate goal is to encourage the most efficient and effective method of recycling so that we may all enjoy a greener planet.