Waste Management

Paper, Plastic, and Metal

Most household paper, plastic and metal products are recyclable within municipal recycling facilities. Follow these general tips to recycle most effectively:

Items must be clean! Depending on the recycling facility, contamination of materials with food and other contaminants can prevent items from being recycled.
Check what can be recycled! Each municipality is slightly different in what items they accept and how they should be sorted. Consult your municipal waste management websites for lists of accepted items, and contact them if you have any questions about specific items. Ex. Guelph Waste Wizard
TIP: Keurig is now designing K-cups to be recyclable, as long as you remove the foil and coffee grounds prior to recycling . However, in some facilities, these pods are not actually recycled as they are too small to be sorted. Check with your municipality!

Organic Waste

Many municipalities also run composting programs for food and garden waste, for which guidelines can often be found online (often found with recycling guidelines). Follow these tips for successful composting:

Keep a small bin with a compostable liner (newspaper, etc) in the kitchen and empty it periodically into an isolated larger bin to minimize rotting food smells.
You can also compost at home! Composting provides great fertilizer for gardens and landscaping. Compost Guide provides comprehensive directions for beginning this process in your home!

Toxic/Hazardous Waste

Do NOT discard of hazardous wastes like paints, chemicals, cleaning solvents, etc. in the garbage or by pouring them down a drain! These materials can be environmentally devastating as well as dangerous to humans, so they need to be dealt with in secure waste management facilities.

Contact your municipality or check online for drop-off locations for these materials. Most municipalities readily accept all kinds of hazardous materials at no cost to you.
The store at which you purchased the items should also be able to advise you on correct disposal methods.
The extra time it takes to discard of these items is part of the responsibility of purchasing and using them, and proper management can save fragile ecosystems from destruction.

Office Supplies

We don't often think about the short lifespans of the pens, pencils, and toner cartridges that we use at work and school. There are a few companies in Canada and the USA that provide great recycling programs for these products that are accessible to the public.

Staples has a program to recycle pens, markers, hi-lighters, pencils, toner cartridges, batteries, and electronics! This is a great way to pick up supplies and in the same stop, dispose of used products! Check with local stores about the availability of these programs near you!
Crayola ColorCycle is a program that takes used markers, hi-lighters and dry erase markers and converts them to energy and construction materials. Crayola accepts boxes (8-10 lbs each) of used markers and pays for the boxes to be shipped to them. The markers must be shipped in bulk, but this is a great collection project for schools and offices!

Personal Care Products

It is easy to forget all the waste we create when using our personal care products (shampoo, lotion, toothpaste) as time goes on. Some of these containers, such as toothpaste tubes, are not easily recyclable, but can be disposed of by using a company called TerraCycle. You have to pay for TerraCycle to send you a box to fill, but placing a communal recycling container in a school or office building is a great way to recycle lots of products and split the cost! It is also worth noting that TerraCycle provides a huge variety of recycling options for all kinds of items, including toys, sports equipment, backpacks, school supplies, automotive waste, and more. Check out their website for pricing and recycling program details!

E-Waste

As we become increasingly reliant on technology, the number of electronic items that are disposed of year-to-year is growing. Disposed of improperly, batteries and electronic items can leach toxins into soils and waterways. The mining of the metals used for many electronics has a huge environmental impact, so recycling the materials already mined can reduce those impacts. Most technology companies provide e-waste disposal services, such as:

Staples: as previously mentioned, Staples recycles e-waste as well as office supplies.
Best Buy also offers an e-waste recycling program, with a wide variety of items accepted, such as batteries, microwaves, home theater systems, and more.
Many municipal governments also accept e-waste drop offs at their waste management locations. Check online for details in your region.

Overall, remember to always reduce first, then reuse, then recycle! Proper disposal of waste can be extremely beneficial to local flora and fauna as well as ecosystems as a whole. Happy recycling!