Recycling - not just for hippies
Recycling. Kudos to those who have mastered it! It can require some effort, forethought and organisation especially when you can recycle more than you think! I see plastic bags grace their way into regular recycling bins all the time - at work, at home & when eyeballing the neighbours taking out their bottles. They aren’t supposed to go in the yellow top curb-side recycling. When they do, they get sent to the automated recycling centre and clog up the machines - I’ve been told this many times but finally looked in to it myself to see the extent of the damage it can cause (see link below):
http://recyclingweek.planetark.org/
Not only shopping bags, but any soft, scrunch-able plastic is of no use to either bin - rubbish or recycling. I found a website called www.redcycle.net.au which lists the items that you probably thought you couldn’t recycle, but can. Bread bags, bubble wrap, biscuit wrappers, paper goods packaging, pasta and rice bags, frozen food packets, confectionery bags, cereal box liners, shopping bags and even those “green” bags that have started to fall apart (and smell like old food!) - plus much more. Collect these items and drop them off at your local Coles (see the Redcycle website above for locations).
Look for the big green bin tucked away somewhere near the service desk...or...you can opt to post your discarded plastic gold to:
RED Group 38 Chelmsford Street
Williamstown North VIC, 3016.
Your bin will be a whole lot lighter and the planet happier that you made the effort.