“Yes, I recycle.”

We hear this proudly expressed by residential customers. And we’re grateful for it. However, household recycling is unfortunately sometimes only partial recycling. That means recycling occurs usually in one room of the house: the kitchen. And, if so, we’re missing out on more recyclable items that may be ending up in the bedroom, den, or bathroom trash. The other end of the spectrum is placing items in the recycling cart that we hope are recyclable, or they ought to be. This is called “wishcycling.” The downside of wishcycling is that it can create more waste, not less. For instance, if an item that is not accepted in your recycling cart is deposited in there, those items contaminate recyclable materials. In some cases, the whole load of items become so contaminated that the whole cart’s contents could end up in the landfill. So, recycle throughout the house, and recycle right with only accepted items. In the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing the most common recycling myths and the most common items that end up contaminating carts. To learn more, go to MyDoRight.com.