One of the most common things you will find in America today is a recycling bin. For many reasons, Americans have come to accept the idea of the recycling bin as a necessity. While some people know what it is and why they need it, others don’t know what a recycling bin is.
If you are part of the former set of people, we would say congratulations; you are one step closer to the knowledge about your environment. If you are part of the latter, well, there’s still a chance for you to learn everything you need to know. And that chance is what you have in this post.
In today’s post, you will get to know what a recycling bin is and how you can use it. The knowledge won’t stop there; you would also learn the types of recycling bins. And finally, the types of items you can put in each type of recycling bin.
So, you see, there is a lot to learn from this post. What you have to do is fasten your seat belt, and let’s go.
Meaning of Recycling Bin
Recycling bins are receptacle or medium-sized drums that are normally used to keep different materials that have been considered recyclable. These receptacles serve as temporary containers for items that we want to recycle. After a while, the recycling company comes to empty the container to recycle.
Basically, recycle Bins are basically large containers that you must have seen outside your home, in parks or streets, and are used to store recyclable material.
Once it is filled with the material the same is then picked by the local municipal body or local recycling firms to process those and make new products from them. The recycling bin, its purpose is to collect things that would have ended up in the landfills. These things are often reprocessed to make new things.
In a recycling bin, you can put different things. You can put papers, metal scraps, plastics magazines, used electronics, and many other things. However, you have to know which recyclable items to put in each recycling bin, as there are different kinds. We will get to these also, but let us consider the ways a recycling bin helps the environment.
4 Ways Recycling Bins Help The Environment
For something to be well accepted among many people, it shows great benefits to the users. Recycling bins have come to be a household name in America, and many people love it. This means that there are some benefits the recycling bins have.
With regards to the environment, there are many ways recycling bins benefit it. Below, you will find some of those ways. Let’s get to it.
First of all, let us establish that the recycling bin is intimately connected to the recycling process. This means that what we would be considering would encompass the benefits of recycling bins and recycling to the environment. That settled, let’s now dive in.
1. Conservation of Resources
The idea behind recycling is to conserve resources. Likewise, recycling bins provide an avenue for people to put what they considered as waste in it. These wastes are what are now being recycled to make new materials.
This shows that recycling and recycling bins help to conserve resources. For example, when you put some stacks of old magazines in the recycling bin, you are indirectly reducing the pressure on trees. This way, the old magazines would be recycled to make other paper material things, thereby saving trees. If you don’t already know, manufacturers cut down trees to get pulp used for papers. In all, the implication is that the more papers you recycled, the more trees we will all have standing.
In the same vein, when you recycle tins or irons, you are cutting down mining pressure. Whether we like it or not, mining has a damaging effect on the environment. Hence, to save the environment, we should recycle more metals.
In all, recycling and recycling bins help the world to conserve resources.
2. Saving of energy
You would agree that a lot of energy is directed for use when manufacturing a new product. This is a necessary part of the production. For instance, when making paper, you would need the energy to transport yourself to cut trees. The machines used for cutting the trees would run on energy. You would need the energy to transport the trees and process them. Then more and more energy till you finally package it and transport it to the store for sale.
Often, there are no other means to cut this energy. The only way is to cut the use of these papers and recycle those that have already been used. This way, lesser energy is used to reprocess these materials. For example, experts have estimated that one would be saving up to ninety percent of energy when recycling aluminum products. This revelation is a big shot and shows that we should recycle more.
So, there it is. Recycling bins help play a role in saving the world’s energy. And if you think about it, they are also dropping the amount of greenhouse gas from manufacturing a new product.
3. Protection of The Environment
If you consider the two ways we have discussed above, you should be able to arrive at this quite quickly. Recycling helps to protect our precious environment in many ways. For instance, if you don’t toss your used plastic products in the recycling bin, you create a problem for the environment. The plastic could end up in the aquatic environment and could harm the sea animals.
Aside from this, you are also protecting the environment by recycling papers. Trees that paper is made from help release energy into the environment and take in the poisonous gases in the environment. This is why there have been different campaigns recently to plant more trees
4. Reducing Landfills Content
You would agree with me that all used things would go into the garbage if there were no recycling bins. And where would they end up? The landfills, of course.
If you think about this, you will appreciate the recycling bins even more. Landfills around the country are places people don’t want to be, so the less we have them, the better for us all. Recycling bins help us achieve this in some ways.
By tossing your used things in the recycling bin, you reduce the content that goes to the landfill. This helps the environment greatly. Landfills are known to occupy a large expanse of land and emit offensive odors. Now, imagine if there was no recycling bin. The implication is that you might just have a landfill close to your block because humans need to dispose of stuff.
Also, materials that would have ended up in the landfills are saved by the recycling bin. For instance, when you put plastics in the recycling bins, you are saving the environment. If plastics end up in the landfills, they will spend hundreds of years before breaking down. If they break down, they only reduce to microplastic, which affects the soil too.
Before this happens, the flood could wash them away into the sea. Here aquatic animals could eat them up. This, obviously, would endanger the animals.
So, you see, it might look distant, but recycling bins are saving the environment.
All these show that you are protecting the environment from threats that could be posed to it by outing your used things in the recycling bins. So, why wait? Put some more things in the recycling bin. That’s why they are there.
These are just a few ways that recycling bins and recycling help the environment.
Like we pointed out, your recycling bins out there. They come in different colors, and you don’t put the same things in all of them. So, you should learn the ropes now. How do you use your recycling bins? Let’s go into that.
Types of Recycling Bins, Colours And Types of Items You Can Put In Each Recycling Bin
1. Blue Bin
You would have come across the blue recycling bin. The color of this recycling bin means something. It signifies the kind of items you can put in it.
For the blue recycling bin, you can put paper and paper materials in them. The blue color signifies the act of saving the trees and ecosystem, particularly the wildlife.
So, when next you see the blue recycling bin, go ahead and toss your office papers and cardboards in it.
2. Green Bin
The green recycling bins are for collecting organic materials. Collecting organic materials is very important to the environment. Though if you toss them away, they will decompose after a while, they can still be used for other things.
You can put foods, flowers, coffee grounds, veggies, fruits, prunings, and food leftovers in your green recycling bin.
3. Red Bin
The red recycling bin is for collecting materials with a thin plastic coating in them. They are mostly used to gather landfill wastes.
For the red recycling bin, you can put plastic bags, polystyrene, sticky tapes, cling wrap, glazed wrappers, etc.
4. Yellow Bin
The yellow recycling bin is a more encompassing bin you can have in the environment. It is a mixed recycling bin, and it contains different kinds of things. Nonetheless, you still can’t toss everything you find in the yellow recycling bin.
So, what are the things you can put there? You can put glass bottles, cardboard, newspaper, plastic, aluminum cans, juice and milk cartons, office papers, coffee cups with lids (Disposable ones).
5. White Bin
The white recycling bin is for collecting soft plastics. We mean materials that are coated with plastics or made with a thin lining of plastics by soft plastics.
For the white recycling bins, you can put plastic bags, biscuit packets, bubble wraps, cling wraps, frozen foods, confectionary bags, etc.
Ways to Use Recycling Bins
Using something right is as good as having that thing in the first place. For recycling bins, you should learn how to use it properly.
There are 8 different ways to use recycling bins. They are:
1. Single Stream, which has just one compartment for your recyclables
2. Double Stream, which has two compartments for your recyclables
3. Triple Stream, which has two compartments for your recyclables and one compartment for the non-recyclables
4. Quad stream
5. Tray top
6. Automatic trash bins, this opens up once it senses you coming to trash things.
7. Lockable shred cans. This is mostly for office purposes. You keep unused documents in them before shredding them. The good thing is that you can always lock it.
8. Wall mount recycling bins
Conclusion
Recycle bins is a great way to start recycling. It has helped enormously in the last few decades to process waste products that could otherwise have ended up filling up the garbage. Recycling helps in energy conservation, reducing pollution, and landfill reduction.
Recycling bins have come to be known in every home in America. Even beyond the homes, we have them in different places across the country. Wherever you may go, you will find them. What this shows is the importance and usefulness of the recycling bin.
In every way, the recycling bin will always be useful because it helps us save the environment. The more important thing is that you have to learn to use them properly.
All the information you need has already been provided above. So, you see, you are way more knowledgeable than when you first started reading this post.
