March 28, 2024
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Phone: 509-242-7752
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Splash photo by Tammy Kimberley

The Gemtext recycling station located on East Boone Avenue near Liberty Lake Elementary School is one place you can recycle textiles such as clothing, shoes and stuffed animals.

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In the November Wave: A day made for recycling
10/28/2015 3:04:20 PM

By Chad Kimberley
Splash Contributor

November has a couple really important days that are celebrated and remembered-Veterans Day and Thanksgiving-as well as a few crazy days that probably don't get a lot of attention such as Sandwich Day (Nov. 3) and Have a Bad Day Day (Nov. 19). But one day that deserves more attention since it provides a way you can make a difference is America Recycles Day on Nov. 15. 

The basic idea of recycling is to make something new out of something used and, by doing that, reduce waste as well as help make communities cleaner and better. Below are a bunch of ideas you could use to celebrate on Nov. 15, any day during the month of November, or throughout the whole year.

Turn recycled materials into crafts.
This is the perfect rainy day, sunny day or any day activity. Instead of throwing away those old magazines, newspapers, bottle caps, water bottles or cereal boxes, turn them into something new and cool to decorate your room, create Christmas gifts or simply to have a fun day crafting away. You can take old bottle caps and turn them into new magnets. Water bottles can become piggy banks, and cereal boxes can become seed starters or bookmarks. Top off your recycle gift-giving by wrapping in newspapers or magazines to create the ultimate recycled gift. 

Get cash for your school.
Gemtext Spokane is a company that sponsors a textile recycling contest among schools with the winning school earning a donation and, more importantly, helping keep usable stuff out of landfills. It is estimated by the Environmental Protection Agency that 2.5 billion pounds of textiles end up in landfills. Organizations like Gemtext recycle those textiles (think clothes and shoes) and then gives some cash to the winning school. Last year Liberty Lake Elementary won the competition for a second time. 

Recycle your food and help a tree grow.
Think about how much food is thrown out on an average day at school and home. A couple of leftover chicken nuggets get thrown into the trash, or you try to sneak in those few carrots or apple slices you didn't want to eat into the garbage without your parents looking. The reality is 40 percent of all food is wasted, and much of that ends up in landfills causing more problems for our environment. Food scraps can actually be used to create compost which goes into the soil and can help plant and animal life.

Create storage containers for your bedroom.
Instead of throwing away common items, turn them into storage containers for baseball cards, Legos, crayons, books or nearly anything that needs a home. Some of the items that work great for storage are baby wipes containers (wipe them out and use them for crayons), shoe boxes (craft items or baseball cards), old lunch boxes (Legos or other small toys) or food jars (game pieces or jewelry). 

Go on a recycle walk.
One of the best things you can for your community is to go on a recycle walk where the goal is to pick up as much trash as you can for the purpose of recycling. Look for aluminum cans and plastic bottles, old newspapers and magazines; pick up pieces of cardboard and small pieces of metal. All of these items can be recycled so you should grab your friends or family and head out around your neighborhood, school and community to help make the world a bit prettier of a place. If you want to get really ambitious, have your class at school challenge other classes to see who can collect the most pounds of recyclable material.

Whether you pick a big project like making all of your Christmas gifts out of recycled items or encourage your family and classroom to recycle more frequently, the goal of America Recycles Day is to simply get you thinking about how and why it is important to recycle. Pick one item off this list and sit down with your family and friends to figure out how you will get started making a difference. 


• • •

America Recycles Day: November 15
What can you do to celebrate this day? Think about ways to get your friends, classmates and community members excited about working together to recycle. Then take just one simple step to reduce waste in the community. 

For more, go to www.americarecyclesday.org.  
 
• • • 

Recycling 101 

Compiled by Chad Kimberley
Splash Contributor

In honor of America Recycles Day on Nov. 15, find out more about the facts, stats and realities of a world where more recycling is needed to reduce trash and waste. 

Too much trash?
• The average person creates about 4 pounds of trash every single day.

• For every $1,000 of fast food bought, almost 200 pounds of trash is created.

• Americans throw away 28 billion bottles and jars each year which can be recycled. Of the 2.5 million plastic bottles used by Americans every hour, most of them are thrown away. 

• Each year enough steel is thrown away to build all the new cars made in America.

Recycling life cycle
• In 1874 the first curbside recycling program began in Baltimore, Md.

• Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy equivalent to listening to 10 songs on an iPod.

• Recycling 100 cans could light a bedroom for two weeks. 

• Once an aluminum can is recycled, it can become part of a new can within six weeks.

• Glass never wears out; it can be recycled forever. 

• 99% of all asphalt is recycled and used to fix and build more roads. 

Plastic, oceans don't mix
• Shoppers worldwide use 500 billion single-use plastic bags per year or 150 bags a year for every person on earth. If you put all the plastic bags together they would wrap around the globe 2,400 times.

• Current estimates say there are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the ocean.

• 100,000 sea creatures a year die from getting tangled up in plastic in the water. 

• Around 1 million sea birds also die from plastic pieces.

• Plastic bags have been found in the deepest parts of the oceans including along, and buried in, Arctic ice. 

Reducing paper usage
• The average American uses seven trees a year in paper, wood, and other products made from trees. That's about 680 pounds of paper per person each year.

• To produce each week's Sunday newspapers, 500,000 trees must be cut down. If all newspaper was recycled each year, 250 million trees could be saved.

• The average household throws away 13,000 pieces of paper each year which includes a lot of junk mail and packaging materials.

Top 10 in the Bin
These 10 common household items can all be placed in blue recycling bins:

Cardboard
Paper
Food boxes
Mail
Jugs
Food cans
Glass bottles
Beverage cans
Jars (glass and plastic)
Plastic bottles and caps

 

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