recycle right.​
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Grades K-4

Tutorial 2: Recyclables vs. Contamination

Objective: Post a recycling guide to help your household recycle and check your blue bin for items that don’t belong. 

Now that you know why recycling is so important in America, have you thought about how you can help? 

​Does your family recycle at home? If you answered yes, who is in charge of making sure everything goes in the right container? It’s an important job because mistakes made in the recycling bin can be a big deal. 

Sometimes a piece of trash is placed in the recycling bin by mistake, or a plastic container placed in the recycling bin still has food or water inside. When this happens, it is called contamination.  

​When a contaminated item is mixed with other recyclables, they can no longer be recycled and end up going to the landfill instead. That’s why it’s so important to be sure that your waste is sorted into the correct bins. 

Families in Oceanside have three different waste bins that are color-coded: blue, green and gray.  Each container holds a different type of waste from your home. Knowing exactly what goes in each bin will make sure you don’t contaminate a load. ​

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The Blue Bin - Recyclable

Glass, aluminum and tin 
Glass, aluminum and tin all go into the blue bin. These are things like jars, soda cans, and soup cans.

Rigid Plastic
Rigid (or hard) plastic is the only type of plastic that can be recycled in the blue bin. If you tap a plastic container on the side of your kitchen counter and it makes a “thunk thunk” sound, you can recycle it. But first, make sure there is no food or liquid stuck inside. If you have thin, squishy plastic, like a bread bag, you’ll need to throw it away in the trash.  ​

Paper and Cardboard
Recycling paper products saves trees from being cut down. Most types of paper can be recycled, like computer paper, newspaper, junk mail, cereal boxes, egg cartons, and the thick cardboard boxes. 

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The Green Bin - Green Waste 

The green bin is for materials that you would usually find outside your home, like leaves, branches, and grass clippings. These materials are called green waste. In Oceanside, the green waste collected from homes goes to a facility where it is turned into a new material that is really good for the garden, called compost.

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The Gray Bin - Landfill Waste

What’s left after you’ve placed your recycling in the blue bin and your green waste in your green bin? Hopefully you don’t have a lot of waste left, but you may have items like food wrappers,  food to-go containers, pet waste, plastic utensils, plastic bags and diapers. These all belong in the gray bin.

​Food scraps also go in the gray bin, but they can actually be recycled at home! You can make your own compost pile in your yard or start a worm farm to eat your leftover food waste.

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Tutorial Challenge

1. Print this recycling guide and place it somewhere your entire family can see. 
2. Take a peek in the blue recycle bin at your house. Use the recycling guide to help you figure out if there is anything inside that doesn’t belong. Did you spot any contamination?

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