Recycling Tips

There are lessons we can learn from our children, who are becoming more consciously aware of the need to "conserve, reuse and recycle" as a personal commitment to protect the planet for future generations. I was astonished to learn that 85% of what we throw away could be recycled!

Yashasvi "Yash" Bhat was a fifth grade student when he and his mother decided to make the effort to recycle household plastic, paper, cardboard, tin cans and glass items. So instead of making one trip to the on-site trash compactor, they made an additional trip to a recycling pickup station a few blocks away.

Yash is determined to promote recycling as a worthy effort, and chose "recycling" as a sixth-grade civic service project. You may have seen a poster that he created -- displayed in the community center and at the bulletin board near the mail boxes.  

(Click image to enlarge) 

Conserve - It's easy to conserve water by turning off the water faucet while brushing your teeth and turning the water on again, only to rinse -- or by adjusting the AC/heating to higher and lower settings. (You can actually reduce your power bill by 7% per month by making a one-degree adjustment higher for AC and one-degree lower for heating.)

Reuse - It's also easy to think of many ways to re-use plastic, paper, cardboard and glass product containers rather than purchase additional containers for shipping, storage, gift wrapping etc.

Recycle - But it takes a conscious effort to sort out the paper, cardboard, plastic, glass items, tin and metal can that can be recycled. It's much easier to throw it all into plastic trash bags that can be thrown into the on-site trash compactors. But the cost in future generations to undo the contamination will be high and unavoidable.

Our city, county and state is mandated to steadily increase residential recycling efforts from 30% to 75% within just a few years, but at this time gated communities are exempt.

Since we do not have curbside pickup by city trash collectors, we must take our recycling to the nearest recycling pickup station that is less than a 5-minute drive away.

For more information visit: 
Orange County Recycling Program

Keep Orlando Beautiful - Events & Recycling

Our Mission is to empower individuals to take greater responsibility for enhancing their community environment through litter prevention, waste reduction/recycling, and beautification.