Why Recycling Right is Important

The City of Elkhart provides free recycling through a single-stream recycling process with Borden Waste-Away, where all recyclable goods are placed in a bin. Recyclable items are sorted even further and shipped to other facilities that utilize these materials. According to Waste-Away, who conducts curbside pickup for the city, 98 percent of all collected items get recycled. Contamination and placing trash in the recycling can cause this percentage to decline. If you want to know more about what to recycle, click on this link: Can you recycle this?

Here are some reasons why we must put in some effort to sort through our trash and recycling properly.

• Wishful recycling (recycling a material that you wish was recyclable but is not supposed to go into the bin) only damages machinery. These "wishful" materials include plastic utensils, straws, plastic bags, etc. Recycling items like these only decrease the likelihood of other materials getting recycled, which can increase costs for the city and its residents.

• Placing some items in the recycling (i.e. sharp needles and toxic chemicals) can harm workers who hand-sort through the materials

• Proper sorting reduces items sent to landfills and can reduce overall land space used for a landfill

• Recycling the right way saves energy. Extracting new materials from our environment requires more energy than recycling the material.

There's more you can do for our planet besides recycling. The planet gives back to us when we do more to help. Click here for more information.