How to best recycle that pretty paper
Ribbons, bows and glitter are serious no- nos
SAN FRANCISCO – There’s more to recycling your Christmas paper than stuffing everything into a big blue bin.
U. S. trash companies increasingly are having to send what would have been waste- paper recycling to landfills after China cracked down on Americans’ sloppy recycling habits. It turns out that the glue on bows, the glitter dusting your fancy wrapping paper and miles of ribbons clog the process of turning waste paper into new paper and cardboard.
It has gotten so bad that starting Jan. 1, China is setting new limits on the contamination it will allow in the mixed paper bales American trash companies ship there for recycling. “They’ve starting getting more rigorous, even tearing open bales at customs,” said Chaz Miller, policy director for the NationalWaste& Recycling Association.
If China takes less of America’s used paper, our trash rates likely will rise, since selling that waste often subsidizes the cost of our neighborhood pickup.
Here’s the right way to clean up from Christmas.
Bows
As pretty as they make a package, the plastic- paper composite of most bows doesn’t work when you’re trying to create cardboard.
“I don’t know of any paper mill in the United States that would want a bow in their incoming bales,” Miller said. The good news is they’re the easiest Christmas item to reuse.
During the unwrapping, keep a paper grocery bag next to you and play “can you dunk it?” with the bows that come off the presents. Youmay never need to buy a bag of bows again.
Wrapping paper
Yes, you can recycle Christmas wrapping paper — unless it’s metallic, has glitter or has velvety flocking .
“Plain wrapping paper is totally recyclable,” said Robert Reed, a spokesman for Recology, a San Franciscobased recycling company.
Christmas cards
Paper Christmas cards can go straight into the paper recycling bin. shiny cards printed on photo paper need to go into the trash. It’s the same with ones that have lots of metallic embossing, Reed says. Cards with glitter should stay out of recycling. “You can’t recycle glitter,” he said.