Recycling Made Easy: Organize Your Recyclables, Save Money and Have Some Fun

Recycling is a great way to help the planet, save money and have fun, all at the same time. If you do a little advance planning, it isn't difficult at all.

It doesn't matter what kind of container you use to organize your recyclables. I use paper sacks, which I place under the sink in my kitchen and in the laundry room. I have one container for plastic and metal, and another for paper and cardboard. My sanitation service will pick up the former, and not the latter, so it's important to keep them separate. Then I have another area for newspaper.

The recycling bins provided by my city are in the garage, since they're too big for inside the house. When the sacks of plastic and metal inside the house become too full, they go out into these bins. Periodically we also place old newspapers in a separate bin, per our city's instructions.

Since we only get pickup once every other week, it's important to keep up with this process, and make sure that the recyclables find their way to the curb on the right day.

We must take junk mail and cardboard to the recycling center ourselves. They are stacked, in paper sacks, on the side of the garage, and when there is enough to warrant a trip, my husband takes the kids and they do a recycling run on a Saturday.