How To Recycle In Your Kitchen For Beginners

Earth day or any day, recycling is a great way to reduce waste and preserve this beautiful place we call home! Want to know the best part? It is so easy to do! Start by making a few changes in your kitchen and see how simple it can be to recycle at home. Here are some tips to help you kick things off!

Find out how your community handles recycling.

Visit your city’s website or give them a call to learn more about how recycling is handled in your community. Most U.S. cities sort recycling into two categories. The first incudes paper and cardboard, and the second is made up of plastic, glass, and aluminum. Some cities may even provide bins upon request. Store these bins on the side of your home or inside your garage until pick up day.

Once you know when trash and recycling pick up happens, you might want to set up a notice in your phone or write it on the refrigerator memo board. A little reminder can be helpful, especially when first starting a recycling routine.

Set up a quick and easy recycling system in your kitchen.

4-19-19 RTA2-Bottom Mount Double Pullout Waste Container

Most waste generates from the kitchen, so it makes sense that this is where you should focus your efforts. The first thing you’ll want to do is get an extra waste container so that you can quickly and easily sort trash from recycling.

To keep bins out of sight, consider storing them in a kitchen cabinet. Inside cabinet accessories like this Bottom Mount Double Pullout Waste Container and this Double Pullout Waste Container are kept discreetly behind kitchen cabinet doors. This is a super storage solution in general but is especially great for recycling.

Sometimes people blame laziness for not recycling. With the recycling basket right next to your trash basket, there’s no reason to not put waste in the right place. Depending on how much waste your home creates, you should empty items from your recycling basket into the outside bins every day or so. Recycling pick up usually happens once a week (rather than twice like trash), so you want to stay on top of this process.

Don’t leave recycling up to chance or make it a super complicated endeavor.

reuse, reduce and recycle stamp

It’s the little things, like setting a reminder for recycling day and having multiple trash baskets in your kitchen, that can make recycling part of your everyday routine. Use Earth Day as your inspiration to set yourself up for success!

It will probably take a little trial and error (it’s okay if you miss pick up day one week, but don’t let that discourage you). Keep building those good habits and in time they’ll become second nature.

Turn recycling into a game for kids and teenagers.

Once you’re on board with recycling, you’ll want the rest of your household to be as well. Understanding the difference between trash and recycling can be difficult for younger kids, so color coordinate bins, or use labels to help them identify between the two.

You can also play games with toy groceries or by drawing what goes in the trash basket and what can be recycled. For older kids or teenagers, games can be replaced by chores. If you have a chore chart or reward system, you can highlight recycling as a task to be tackled!

At The RTA Store we help make your dream home a reality with RTA (Ready To Assemble) and Pre-Assembled cabinets and accessories. Whether it’s your kitchen bathroom, laundry room, home office, bar room or TV room, we offer the same (if not better) quality you would find at any retail store, but for a fraction of the price. Stop by our website or give us a call and let us make your dreams come true with the help of our free room design tool!