Saving the Environment Works with One Person at a Time

To save our environment, we can do it one person at a time beginning with Recycling at Home.

Every single day, year after year, tons of material that could be recycled aren't, and end up clogging our already overwhelmed dumps, waterways and roadsides. It is not a difficult undertaking to organize a recycling center in your own home. With a little creativity, bright ideas and commitment, recycling can be easy to do. You would be amazed at how good you will feel about yourself because of doing your part to care for our environment .

Create a space in your home or apartment for your recycling center. You don't need a big area for your recyclables. Outside the back door, in the garage or car port, a storage closet, corner of the kitchen, cabinet or under your kitchen sink all make great locations. Find and clearly label containers in which to store your recycled materials. You can get a stack set of containers, some even have drawers or try plastic buckets, storage containers, trash cans and even old milk crates work great depending on the amount of room you have available.

Labels you can use for recycling are paper, cardboard, aluminum, tin, plastic and glass. You can use Wiki to find out more information about the items that you can recycle. Use your local yellow pages to find out recycling plants that are close to you.

You need to ensure your items to recycle are clean. For instance, if you are going to recycle a glass jar that had tomato sauce in it, be sure to rinse it out first.

If you are a crafty kind of person, perhaps you can work out creative ways to re-use some of the items before recycling.

You can get your family actively involved in the recycling process. Make sure that your family members are aware of what products can be recycled. Instruct each one on the difference between the aluminum can bin and the tin can bin. While doing weekly chores, each person in your family can be on the lookout for recyclable material lying around the house and can place the items in the proper storage bins.

Encourage each person in your household to come up with ideas for reducing the amount of recycled material that's consumed by your household. Take your family along with you to the recycling center in your neighborhood to witness the process firsthand.

Give a good example to your family on how to reuse recyclable materials in their own organizational efforts at home. As an example a large cardboard box can double as a bin for shoes, or a coffee can be repurposed as a penny bank - it can even be painted and decorated.

And when your family members learn the money that can be both saved and earned from recycling and reusing products, they'll have developed an environmentally healthy and thrifty habit for life.