Friday, November 15th, is America Recycles Day! This national initiative was started by Keep America Beautiful to promote and celebrate recycling. Every year thousands of communities across the country participate by promoting environmental citizenship and taking action to increase and improve recycling efforts in America. If your community doesn’t have any events for America Recycles Day, here’s what you can do to participate!
Organize Your Own Event
You can search for events in your area, but if there aren’t any, consider taking the lead and organize one for your community. The America Recycles Day website has a toolkit that makes creating an event simple. The toolkits includes ideas for activities for events of all kinds. There’s ideas for recycling at work, K-12 schools and college related events, electronic specific recycling, getting local government involved, and more.
One suggestion they give for a general community audience is a “Ready, Set, Sort” activity. The objective is to encourage more recycling in the community by providing an interactive opportunity to learn what can and can’t be properly recycled. This can be done in a quick game setting, as a full blown competition, in schools, at work, etc. There are many more activity ideas on the website, but you can create your own as well!
Take the #BeRecycled Pledge
The #BeRecycled Pledge is a commitment to recycle more, help conserve natural resources, reduce waste, and inspire others to recycle more. So far, 80,381 have signed the pledge, you can be the next! It’s suggested to share the pledge after you signed to encourage friends and family to do the same.
Educate Yourself on How to Properly Recycle
Not everything can be recycled and there is a right way to recycle most items. Many people throw items into the recycling bin because they believe they should be recyclable, such as used pizza boxes, broken glass, or plastic grocery bags. Always check to make sure what you recycle is on the list of acceptable items. Doing this simple thing will actually reduce costs for everyone and benefit communities everywhere. Electronics are a common item people try to toss or recycle themselves, which shouldn’t be done. If the items aren’t in working condition and can’t be donated, find electronic stores, retailers, or non-profit organizations that offer recycling options.
Minimize Waste and Plastic Use
Obviously one of the best ways to positively impact the environment is by minimizing one-use plastic and waste altogether. Be mindful of the number of disposable items you bring into your home in the first place. Small changes every day can help reduce waste, like bringing lunch to work in reusable containers or using refillable water bottles when you can. Make recycling the norm in your household so that you automatically make smarter choices that result in a positive impact on the environment.
Recycling with PWI
At PWI, we firmly believe in protecting the planet and take measures whenever we can to preserve it. Recycling is something we intergrate into our services whenever possible. With our junk removal services, items that can be recycled will be taken to the appropriate, local recycling center. Items that can be used or refurbished by local charities are donated, and the remaining items will be taken to the nearest landfill and disposed of properly.
Happy America Recycles Day! We hope you celebrate accordingly!
