As we grew up, we have been taught to recycle. We have been taught that recycling is important and it is something that we all can easily do for the environment. We have been taught to recycle everything. Unfortunately, not everything can be recycled. In Lyon County, we have one recycling program that applies to all residents whether you recycle with a cart or at the community recycling drop sites.

When we all recycle appropriately and do not wish-cycle, we will help to boost our economy, protect our environment right here where we live and we can do all of that just by taking part in the recycling program. Unfortunately, poor recycling habits such as guessing if something is recyclable and then tossing it into the recycle bin without knowing for sure if it is recyclable can cost the recycling program money.

This is called wish-cycling. “Wishing something was recyclable” only costs the program money. Feel confident when it comes to recycling correctly by making sure a copy of the recycling guide is posted somewhere in your home. The recycling guide is located online at www.lyonco.org or call us for a copy. The recycling guide shows us what we can recycle which includes pretty much all loose paper such as magazines, newspapers, junk mail, envelopes, brown paper bags, and also cardboard. All of the other items such as aluminum and steel/tin cans, food/beverage cartons, glass bottles and jars, paperboard boxes (think macaroni boxes) and plastic items with the resin code 1, 2 and 5 on them that used to be a food container. In fact, the only items that can be placed into our recycling carts or community bins are those that used to be a food container or is paper.

Items such as Styrofoam, paint cans, miscellaneous metal items, plastic flowerpots, bagged trash or bagged recyclables, clothes, used chemical containers such as empty oil containers or RV fluids, plastic shopping bags, case overwrap such as mulch bags, water bottle overwrap or toilet tissue overwrap, are all trash! If you look at this list, none of these items is a container that used to hold food.

It is hard to have to throw away things that should be recyclable. We all know that these things that we throw away end up in an internal resting place called the landfill. At this time, many of these non-food container items do not have a market for the purchaser of our recyclables to sell to. The larger, bulky plastic items in particular do not currently have a place to send them to for recycling. They are all trash. These items include such things as plastic lawn chairs and laundry baskets or plastic totes. These often have the plastic resin codes 1, 2 or 5 on them but because there is not a current market for them, they are trash.

Plastic manufacturers place a code on pretty much all plastic items from totes to water bottles to laundry detergent bottles to many other plastic items that looks like a recycling logo. It is not a recycling logo. It is a triangle with the 3 chasing arrows that has a number inside the triangle. This is a plastic resin code. I will say it again. It is not a recycling logo. It is far more important to check the recycling guide than to go by any recycling logos on any kind of packaging. The recycling labeling on many items can be questioned because a nationwide manufacturer labels it. New York recycles differently than what we do here. Please take these recycling logos as suggestions only! Always check the recycling guide!

November is National Recycling Month. Please join us by hanging up a recycling guide in your home to help you remember what can and what cannot be recycled. The goal that we try to meet along with reducing waste and reusing what we can is to be able to throw less away into the landfill where it will no longer serve any further purpose. Recycling is only one part of this solution.

Remember what The Lorax says, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” Dr. Seuss. For more information about disposal or recycling, please call the Environmental Office at (507) 532-8210.