Help Santa by Recycling Right

We recently heard that Santa wants to make the North Pole a Zero-Waste community by 2025.  The Elves are working diligently to be more sustainable.  It would be good to help them out by doing our part too!

According to the Recycling Center at Stanford University, Americans create 25% more waste during the holidays. That includes packaging materials, shipping boxes, wrapping paper, and more.

Sometimes it’s difficult to know what we can add to the recycling bin and what we cannot add.  The answers may vary by your location in Virginia, but there are some generalizations.  And remember, the new mantra (sadly) is, “When in doubt, throw it out.”  When an unrecyclable item is added to a pile of otherwise recyclable items, it contaminates the whole pile, generating even more waste to go to the landfill.

Looking at the Christmas holiday, here are some guidelines as to which items are NICE to recycle, and which items are NAUGHTY to put in the recycling bin.

First, the Naughty list.  If you add these items to your curbside recycling bin or include them with your trip to the convenience center will not make Santa (or the recycling plant managers) happy:

• Christmas tree lights.  The long cords can get wrapped around the sorting machinery, causing major problems.  If a strand of lights isn’t working, you can often replace the little fuse or a burnt-out light with the package of extra supplies that comes with the lights.
• Christmas Cards with glitter.  You don’t like that glittery stuff all over your house, and neither do the folks at the paper processing plant.
• Shiny bows.  Unless you’ve made them yourself from recyclable material, save your shiny bows for next year.

Now the Nice list!  These items are good to gather up and add to your recycling bin.

• Wrapping paper that is made of, well, paper.   If it’s not obvious, like brown craft paper or newspaper, scrunch up the paper in your hand; if it stays in a ball it CAN be recycled. But if it springs open it most likely cannot be recycled.
• Cardboard boxes from shipping or gift packaging.  Open them up at the seams and flatten them before adding them to your other recyclable paper products.
• O Tannenbaum!  Yes, a live Christmas tree can be very purposeful after celebrations of the holiday are over. Often trees are added to beaches to help retain sand dunes.  Some retail locations, such as Chicho’s Pizza in Virginia Beach, accept trees after Christmas.  Or you can put your tree in a corner of your backyard for birds and small creatures to use as shelter in the winter.  You can also check with your local zoo or wildlife shelter to see if they will accept trees this year to give to some of their animals who enjoy exploring new objects in their environment.

So be a good elf yourself by recycling responsibly!