There are many examples of recyclable materials in our daily lives – paper shopping bags, cardboard shoe boxes, perfume or medicine boxes, notebooks, plastic water bottles, juices and soft drinks, toilet paper rolls or kitchen paper , multicolour and brown wrapping paper, plastic bags, car cans and other soft drinks, boxes of various products and objects, ribbons, old magazines, newspapers, brochures, buttons, plastic bottle caps, cellophane of chocolate or biscuits, foil bottles of used perfumes.

These are just a few of the materials we can collect and hand over for recycling.

Recycling is the way we take garbage and turn it into new products. There are several types of recycling processes that allow some materials to be used one or more times. Recycling is good for us and the environment because it reduces the use of new raw materials to produce new products.

Once every two weeks, someone at home will put the recycling bin to pass a truck and empty it. Once the truck is full, it travels to the so-called material recovery facility (or recycling station – MRF). There, the load from the truck is transferred to a conveyor belt, where the recyclable materials are sorted by type.

Using a combination of different machines and sometimes people, the recyclable waste from our house is sorted into different materials such as paper, cardboard, plastics, metals, etc. After sorting, each type of material is placed in containers or baled (this is where a large crushing machine crushes all recycled and waste materials in a cube). There are many different types of machines in the recycling station. There may be magnets to attract metals, air fans that blow out paper, round drums that have a number of holes that allow different sized pieces of plastic to fall through different places, and centrifuges that sort other materials (heavy objects fall down and lighter ones go up).

At the end of all this, the materials that cannot be recycled are then placed in the bins and taken to the landfill – an area set aside for receiving and burying waste. That is why it is important to put only what is allowed in the recycling bin. For example, if we put bottles and boxes in a plastic bag, the recycling process at the recycling station does not allow the bag to be opened and sorted, which means that the things in the bag cannot be sent for recycling. This means that instead they will go to the landfill for disposal, which is a waste of resources and not good for the environment.

To help this process run smoothly, we need to make sure that only recyclable things go in the recycling bin. It is also important to consider buying items that are made from recyclable materials. This is very important for keeping our natural environment clean.

It is important to know the colour coding of waste bins and what each colour means. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP8yole8m8Y

The blue bin is for recyclable waste. These are: paper – newspapers, magazines, spam, shredded paper, envelopes, telephone directories and catalogues, cardboard, aerosols, food cans, beverage cans and boxes, plastic bottles, plastic food trays and yogurt pots, glass bottles and jars.

The brown basket is for garden waste and food waste. These are: biodegradable bags or all kinds of bags or sacks, grass, leaves, cut flowers, pure straw or hay, branches less than 10 cm in diameter, scrapes from plates, vegetable shells, meat and bones, eggshells, cooked and uncooked food, tea bags and coffee grounds, food waste can be wrapped in newspaper or kitchen paper towels.

Green or grey bin is for non-recyclable waste such as: general waste and pet waste, plastic bags, polystyrene, light bulbs but not fluorescent bulbs, glassware and mirrors, sanitary products, diapers, food.