Home Recycling Guide for Kids and Families

Recycling is one of the easiest ways to help protect the environment. By reusing materials and reducing waste, we can save energy, keep trash out of landfills, and even conserve natural resources. Recycling is also something fun and rewarding that families can do together. Whether you’ve never understood recycling or want to find other ways to cut down on the amount of trash you throw away, there are steps you can take to make a real impact.

What Is Recycling?

Recycling is the process of turning old or used materials into new products. Instead of throwing things like paper, plastic, glass, and metal into the trash, these items can often be recycled into something new. For example, old newspapers can become paper towels, and plastic bottles can be used to make clothing or carpets. Recycling not only keeps materials out of landfills, but it also helps reduce the need to produce new materials, which saves energy and further reduces pollution.

Reusing and Reducing

While recycling is an important tool to help the environment, it’s important to focus even more on reusing and reducing waste. Reusing means finding new purposes for items instead of throwing them out. For example, you can use old jars as storage containers or turn an empty shoebox into a craft organizer. Reducing means using less in the first place, like carrying your own reusable water bottle instead of buying disposable plastic bottles. Both actions can cut down on the amount of materials used and waste you create in the first place.

Recycling Do’s and Don’ts

Do’s

Clean Your Recyclables: Rinse out food or drink containers to avoid contaminating a batch of recycled material.
Sort Properly: Separate your paper, plastic, metal, and glass if your local recycling program requires it.
Follow Local Rules: Check what your city or town accepts in recycling bins.

Don’ts

“Wishcycling”: Don’t throw items into the recycling bin hoping that they’ll be recycled, without knowing if they’ll actually be accepted.
Recycling Dirty Materials: Food-soiled items, like greasy pizza boxes, can’t be recycled.
Including Plastic Bags: Most curbside recycling programs can’t process plastic bags, but you can take them to special drop-off locations.

Tips for Helping Your Family to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

Create a Recycling Station: Set up clearly labeled bins in your house for different materials.
Learn Together: Research local recycling rules as a family and talk about why recycling is important.
Start Small: Focus on one or two changes to your routine at first, like using reusable grocery bags or recycling all of your aluminum cans.
Make it Fun: Turn recycling into a game by seeing who can collect the most recyclables each week.
Visit a Recycling Center Together: Take a family trip to see where your recyclables go and how they’re processed.

Recycled Craft Ideas

Get creative by turning your recyclables into fun crafts. Here are a few ideas to try:

Bottle Planters: Cut plastic bottles in half, decorate them, and use them to grow small plants.
Tin Can Lanterns: Clean and decorate tin cans, then poke holes in fun patterns and put a candle or battery-powered light inside each to create lanterns.
Cardboard Picture Frames: Use cereal boxes or other cardboard to make and decorate custom picture frames that cost nothing.
Paper Beads: Roll strips of colorful magazines or newspaper into beads to make jewelry.
Jar Terrariums: Fill old glass jars with soil, small plants, and decorations to create mini terrariums.