Creating a Home Recycling Station

Creating a Home Recycling Station

No matter if you live in an apartment or a large house, everyone has space for a home recycling station. If there is not enough room in the kitchen, you can have stackable outside recycling bins that will feat neatly into a corner.

So, you've decided to go green and help make your community a better place to live. That's great but where do you start? Well, recycling begins at home and that is the perfect place for you to start by creating your own custom recycling station to easily help you keep items separated for disposal.

The first thing you have to consider is how much space you have and how much you can allocate to the recycling centre. Some people have ample room such as garage space and or an exterior shed. Others are living in apartments and may only have a small area in the kitchen or a small closet. Decide where you want the recycling centre to be in your home and then you can figure out exactly what you need.

You won't need fancy recycling containers or large bins, you can use ordinary boxes and rubbish bags to separate disposables such as glass, plastics and aluminium. Other items such as household batteries and electronics can also be stored easily without taking up much space. Ideally your home recycling centre is somewhere near the kitchen area where you do most of your rubbish disposal. You can conveniently clean the items for disposal before you store them so that there are no smells later on.

If you are in a small living environment like a flat then you can do a lot to make the storage of recyclables easier. You can crush aluminium cans with your foot to make them as compact as possible. You can shred paper goods with an inexpensive shredder and plastic bottles can be cut into small pieces after cleaning. This goes a long way in keeping your recycling centre as compact as possible.

An easy solution for a home recycling centre is right under your sink. Most people only keep a few cleaners under the sink and if you can find a new home for them then you can set up a few small boxes under the sink in which to keep your recyclables. Most communities these days have a weekly recycling pick up so you won't need too much room as it won't be there for long. For other recyclables such as electronics and batteries that you will have to drop off at a reclaim centre, you can also start a small box somewhere and then once every six months or yearly, as warranted, take them to a local recycling centre.

If you have the extra room, such as a garage or an outdoor shed, then you can use these areas as a recycling holding area where you empty your small recycling boxes into larger recycling boxes once a week. This is all about making sure that you can fit recycling into your lifestyle so it will become a routine way of life. Make sure these areas are easily set up and accessible and before you know it recycling will become a habit that you don't really think much about.

Ideally, as you begin to create and use your home recycling centre you will also begin to pay more attention to how your family consumes products and disposes of them and hopefully you will start to realise the changes that you can make in the buying of these products so you will have even less recycling to do in the future. Becoming more conscious of what we are disposing of can also save you money by buying in bulk instead of pre-packaged individual containers. Throwing away 1-2 litre bottles as opposed to 4-20 ounce bottles is always preferable.

While we all don't have the same amount of room to dedicate to a home recycling centre, everyone has some sort of room where they can begin recycling at home and help to make the community a much better place to live. Most people find that after a year of recycling at home they have found many ways to adapt to the space they do have available and they have also found many tips and tricks to not only make recycling much easier but also much more efficient.

For those of you who still aren't convinced that going green and having a home recycling centre is helpful then you might want to think of it in terms of money. Most people that have a home recycling centre have changed their habits over time and have learned to not only buy in ways that they can recycle less but these buying habits are saving them much needed money without any out-of-pocket expenses. Going green isn't just a great thing for the environment, it can be a great thing for your bank balance as well.

Resources

• Home recycling: a system that fits your lifestyle: http://www.fixandflipnetwork.com/2009/12/home-recycling-create-a-system-that-fits-your-lifestyle/
• Set Up a Recycling Centre: http://www.containerstore.com/tip/roomGarage/recycling
• Fo more great information on how you can reduce, reuse and recycle we thoroughly recommend visiting the Recycling Guide. Here you will find all the latest ideas, facts and news in the recycling world.