What to do with your trash this holiday season - WOODTV.com
What to do with your trash this holiday season | WOODTV.com
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Cleaning up after the holidays is never fun. You may be tempted just to put everything in a bag, toss it in your trash can and forget about it. Unfortunately, that can be very problematic for the environment.
But what should you do? Well, the Kent County Department of Public Works has offered a helpful guide to know exactly what to do with some of the most commonly thrown-out items this time of year.
First and foremost, if the item that is being discarded is still in working condition, the DPW encourages you to donate it to a local charity organization to extend its life. Selling the still-working items online is also an option.
“We know Kent County residents may be replacing electronic items after Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, and it’s important to properly recycle or dispose of their old items to protect our community and our environment,” Katelyn Kikstra, a waste reduction educator at the DPW said in a statement.
Your traditional recyclables can still be placed in the correct bin. Glass, food cartons, hard plastics, cardboard, metal cans, foil and paper cups all fall into this category.
Electronics are one of the DPW’s biggest. Many of them contain valuable materials like copper, silver and gold, but also some hazardous materials like lead and mercury, which need to be kept out of landfills.
This year alone, the organization has reported more than 208,000 pounds of materials have been collected, including 69,471 pounds of LCD TVs and monitors, 3,595 pounds of computers and nearly 60,000 pounds of other electronics.
DPW is asking that all electronics be dropped off at a facility rather than tossed with other garbage. A full list of electronics that should be dropped off can be found here.
Other items that need to be disposed of properly include the following:
- Holiday decor- Christmas trees, wreaths and garlands cannot be recycled. If it can be donated, that is encouraged but if not, then there will be special drop-off days ahead following the holidays.
- Packaging- Styrofoam and flexible plastic film, like bubble wrap, must be dropped off at specialty locations.
- Batteries- Rechargeable and button batteries can be delivered to a DPW SafeChem location for safe disposal. Alkaline batteries, however, can be taped up and placed in the trash.
- Frying oil- A DPW SafeChem location is the best place to safely dispose of your cooking oil used during all of the holiday cooking. The locations will turn the oil into biofuel.
You can find more information by clicking here.
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