The average American discards seven pounds of garbage every day. Most of this goes directly to landfills, putting more and more pressure on our resources and our environment. Granted, many of us are diligent about recycling our pop cans, newspapers, glass, and plastic bottles. Yet we unknowingly throw a lot of other recyclables into the regular trash, especially paper and plastic products such as cereal boxes, grocery bags and bread bags.

Below are some common paper and plastic items in our homes that are usually not recycled, but often can be. Contact your city recycling coordinator, garbage hauler or building manager, and ask which recyclables are accepted in your area and how to prepare the materials. If you live in the Twin Cities metro area, you can find specific curbside recycling guidelines by county and city at www.greenguardian.com.

Paper recycling can usually include the following:

• Magazines, catalogs, hard- and softcover books, and phone books
• Newspaper
• Mail (especially junk mail)
• School and home office paper products (and the boxes they came in)
• Shredded paper
• Corrugated cardboard pieces and boxes
• Paper grocery bags
• Tubes from paper towels or tissue
• Dry food packaging (cereal, pasta, crackers, mixes, tea, etc.)
• Detergent boxes, tissue boxes, gift and shoe boxes

Ask your recycling service how to prepare the boxes. In general, boxes must be clean (no used pizza boxes), dry, and flattened. Boxes or packaging from products typically stored in the refrigerator or freezer (butter, milk, juice, frozen dinners, etc.) are usually not allowed.

Plastic recycling can vary greatly across the U.S. In the Twin Cities area, you’re pretty much limited to plastic bottles that come to a neck, including milk jugs and plastic beverage bottles. Rinse the bottles clean, and remove and discard the caps, lids, tops, or pumps.

While plastic bags are rarely recyclable curbside, there are hundreds of grocery stores and recycling centers that do recycle them. In the Twin Cities area, the “It’s in the Bag” program currently accepts the following plastic items:

• Grocery, retail and water softener salt bags (first remove any string ties or rigid plastic handles)
• Produce bags and bread bags (all food residue must be removed)
• Zipper-type storage/freezer bags (cut off any hard plastic sliding mechanisms)
• Newspaper wrappers
• Dry cleaning bags
• Plastic wrap from paper products (wrapping over paper towels, etc.)
• Stretch wrap and shrink film

For complete guidelines and collection locations, visit www.itsinthebagmn.org. For other areas, the American Plastics Council is working on a new site, www.plasticbagrecycling.org. In the past, this site has been exclusive to California, but it is scheduled to provide nationwide links in November 2006.

The issue of paper vs. plastic disposable shopping bags is a tough one. In terms of production, plastic bags tend to require less energy and have less environmental impact than paper. The problem is that very few plastic bags are recycled, while paper bags are readily accepted in most curbside recycling programs. The best solution is to avoid both, and choose reusable cloth bags. Then reuse your remaining bags for:

• Future shopping trips (keep a stash in your car)
• Lining cloth bags or backpacks
• Packing material to protect breakables
• Laundry bags or shoe storage when traveling (keeps other clothes clean)
• Lining wastebaskets
• Trash bags in your car

Our family’s goal for Trash Day each week is to put out more recycling than garbage. This can be tricky with three children, ages five and under. Of course, we’d like to reduce both recycling and garbage if at all possible.

Make it easy for yourself and your family by setting up recycling stations in your home. Since most of the trash in our house is generated in the kitchen (food packaging, junk mail, etc.), we keep a paper grocery bag under the kitchen sink to collect our paper recycling. Another one sits in the garage to catch junk mail on the way into the house. A canvas bag hangs in the front closet and holds recyclable plastic bags. We walk out to the garage to deposit our other, non-paper recyclables. As stewards of the environment, we need to take seriously our responsibility to protect our resources. Recycling helps preserve the environment and quality of life--for ourselves and future generations--by reducing the amount of trash in our landfills and incineration plants, and by sparing ourselves the costs and impacts of processing raw materials. America Recycles Day is held every November. This annual national awareness event promotes the social, environmental and economic benefits of buying recycled and recycling. For more information, visit www.americarecyclesday.org.

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