by Jessica Miller (Emery Street) | This column provides tips on reducing waste while saving money.

Curbside Recycling

When I stroll around our neighborhood on waste-collection days, I often notice some mistakes from well-intentioned recyclers. Most commonly, I see soda and beer boxes as well as pizza boxes in the recycling bins. Those shouldn’t be recycled (see below). Here are some tips to better sort your trash, and thus save your waste company some money. This will hopefully translate in fewer price increases for their services in the future, and higher wages for their workers.

Paper

• Paper must be free of food, paint, and oil.
• Cardboard paper used for refrigerated or frozen products is waxed and cannot be recycled because it won’t disintegrate well in water.
• Cereal boxes are ok; just remove the plastic liner.

Glass

• Rinse jars and bottles; remove caps.
• No light bulbs, windows, ceramics.

Metal

• Rinse tin cans; you can leave labels.
• Clean pie plates and food trays thoroughly.
• Flatten as much as possible: it will save space and reduce cost.

Plastic

• Recycle plastic labeled as #1 and #2 only (look at the bottom of containers).
• No #1 and #2 tubs used as containers for margarine, ice cream, etc.
• No containers that held hazardous materials.
• You can leave labels.
• #5 containers can be taken to the Menomonie Market Food Co-Op, downtown Menomonie.

Yard

• Twice a year, most waste services pick up leaves for free (in May and November)
• Collect them in paper bags; don’t over fill them.
• Twigs can be taken to one of the two brush sites: http://tinyurl.com/ecbrush

Those tips are adapted from the Beaver Creek Reserve Recycler newsletter. More info on the Eau Claire County Recycling Program: http://tinyurl.com/ecrecycle