Recycling
People throw out everything from toothpaste tubes to old TV
sets, food scraps to plastic milk jugs, jelly jars to paper. What
a waste! Today we should be recycling all this "junk" we use to
throw away, saving valuable landfill space and conserving
natural resources.
The Lucky 13
There are 13 lucky items to be recycled and saved from the
landfills. These items are saved by people who put them at the
roadside for collection or take them to recycling bins located
around town. The lucky 13 are then turned into new products
for us to use. These items become the unlucky 13 when people
throw them away and they add to the mountains of waste that
already fill up landfills.
Luckily, many people are recycling additional items like food
scraps and mixed paper (junk mail, cereal boxes, etc.).
The Lucky 13 Items
Don’t throw away that pop can, car battery, or magazine. They
can all be recycled as part of the Lucky 13 items listed below.
Each of these items can be made into new
products for us to use instead of taking up
space in a pile of junk somewhere. Let’s not
make these the unlucky 13:
Paper
office paper
newspaper
magazines
corrugated cardboard
Containers
aluminium cans
steel (tin) cans
glass bottles and jars
plastic containers
Other Materials
major appliances
waste tires
car batteries (lead-acid types)
yard wastes (try composting)
used motor oil
Some communities have incinerators and have special recycling
rules.
You can:
 buy items in returnable, reusable, or recyclable containers
and then return, reuse or recycle them!
 recycle all of the items on the list of materials banned from
landfills and buy items or packages made with recycled
content.
 recycle a fish through catch-and-release fishing!
One can also recycle natural waste (fruit, vegetables…) by
composting. This can be done as follows:
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In a heap, layer your waste as it accumulates.
Water so compost is kept as moist as a wrung-out sponge.
In a year to 18 months, the material at the bottom and
centre of the pile will be dark, crumbly compost. Sift, and
use the uncomposted material to start a new batch.