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30 things you should never compost or recycle
Though recycling and composting are two of the most important green practices, there are some items that are bad for the environment. Follow these guidelines for best practices.
Tue, Mar 16 2010 at 3:24 PM
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LIKE OIL AND WATER: These items don't mix with recycling. (Photo: john nolan photography/Flickr)
Remember the good ol' days — back when we only had one bin for trash? In retrospect, those days were actually more wasteful than good. We sent things to the landfill that might have nourished our yards, and buried them side-by-side with materials that should have been reclaimed and put back in the production chain.
Today, most of us have two bins: one for compost and another for recycling. They're great for reducing curbside trash, but not everything is suitable for those bins.
We've rounded up 30 things people mistakenly try to compost or recycle. In the case of composting, we chose items generally avoided by experienced compost gurus. For recycling, we've picked things prohibited by most municipal sytems, or of limited use to commercial recyclers. Ready? To the bins!
NEVER COMPOST:
Bread products: This includes cakes, pasta and most baked goods. Put any of these items in your compost pile, and you've rolled out the welcome mat for unwanted pests.
Cooking oil: Smells like food to animal and insect visitors. It can also upset the compost's moisture balance.
Diseased plants: Trash them, instead. You don't want to transfer fungal or bacterial problems to whatever ends up growing in your finished compost.
Heavily coated or printed paper: This is a long list, including magazines, catalogs, printed cards and most printed or metallic wrapping paper. Foils don't break down, and you don't need a bunch of exotic printing chemicals in your compost.
Human or animal feces: Too much of a health risk. This includes kitty litter. Waste and bedding from non-carnivorous pets should be fine.
Meat products: This includes bones, blood, fish and animal fats. Another pest magnet.
Milk products: Refrain from composting milk, cheese, yogurt and cream. While they'll certainly degrade, they are attractive to pests.
Rice: Cooked rice is unusually fertile breeding ground for the kinds of bacteria that you don't want in your pile. Raw rice attracts varmints.
Sawdust: So tempting. But unless you know the wood it came from was untreated, stay away.
Stubborn garden plants: Dandelions, ivy and kudzu are examples of plants or weeds which will probably regard your compost heap as a great place to grow, rather than decompose.
Used personal products: Tampons, diapers and items soiled in human blood or fluids are a health risk.
Walnuts: These contain juglone, a natural aromatic compound toxic to some plants.
It should be pointed out that there are a minority of people who compost practically everything, including items on this list. We've stuck to composting best practices, omitting things that obviously don't belong in the garden (paint, motor oil, etc.). We've also skipped disputed or iffy items, such as dryer lint and highly acidic citrus fruit.
NEVER RECYCLE
Aerosol cans: Sure, they're metal. But since spray cans also contain propellants and chemicals, most municipal systems treat them as hazardous material.
Batteries: These are generally handled separately from both regular trash and curbside recycling.
Brightly dyed paper: Strong paper dyes work just like that red sock in your white laundry.
Ceramics and pottery: This includes things such as coffee mugs. You may be able to use these in the garden.
Diapers: It is not commercially feasible to reclaim the paper and plastic in disposable diapers.
Hazardous waste: This includes household chemicals, motor oil, antifreeze and other liquid coolants. Motor oil is recyclable, but it is usually handled separately from household items. Find out how your community handles hazardous materials before you need those services.
Household glass: Window panes, mirrors, light bulbs and tableware are impractical to recycle. Bottles and jars are usually fine. Compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) are recyclable, but contain a small amount of mercury and shouldn't be treated as common household bulbs. For ideas on how to handle them, see 5 ways to dispose of old CFLs.
Juice boxes and other coated cardboard drink containers. Some manufacturers have begun producing recyclable containers. These will be specially marked. The rest are not suitable for reprocessing.
Medical waste: Syringes, tubing, scalpels and other biohazards should be disposed as such.
Napkins and paper towels: Discouraged because of what they may have absorbed. Consider composting.
Pizza boxes: Too much grease. While some compost enthusiasts steer clear of adding pizza box cardboard to their pile, others report no problems. It's that or the trash.
Plastic bags and plastic wrap: If possible, clean and reuse the bags. Make sure neither gets into the environment.
Plastic-coated boxes, plastic food boxes, or plastic without recycling marks: Dispose of safely.
Plastic screw-on tops: Dispose separately from recyclable plastic bottles. Remember that smaller caps are a choking hazard.
Styrofoam: See if your community has a special facility for this.
Tires: Many states require separate disposal of tires (and collect a fee at the point of sale for that purpose).
Tyvek shipping envelopes: These are the kind used by the post office and overnight delivery companies.
Wet paper: In general, recyclers take a pass on paper items that have been exposed to water. The fibers may be damaged, and there are contamination risks.
Your municipal recycling system gets the final say as to what belongs in your bin. Some areas will restrict more items that we've listed. Other have special programs for dealing with problematic materials. In most cases, municipal systems are happy to provide written guidelines. Wondering how to recycle something your local system won’t take? Pop over to the Earth911 website and see what is available in your area.
Copyright Lighter Footstep 2009
Photo: Texas to Mexico/Flickr
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YOU CAN RECYCLE SO MANY THINGS ON THIS WEBSITE AND THOSE PEOPLE ARE WRONG AND I DISAGREE
i disagree to some of the things its listed such as printed paper because its still paper and cardboard , cardboard is something that everyone recycles
veryyyy bad
Then what do we compost? Because most animals eat veggies... so What? This is a crappy article. Tell us what to compost because some of us are too stupid to know what we can compost.
I said it before Guinea Pigs eat a lot of fruits and veggies that would normally compost but the Never Recycle List is way off, if you dont put it in the Recycle Bin thats fine BUT YOU CAN RECYCLE IT!!! Visit www.FreeRecyclingQuotes.com for more places to recycle odd ball stuff.
Accepts almost everything in the non-compost list for the municipal compost (not the feces and such, obviously). I can have wine grown using my spring allergy tissues in a few years.
A little research helps find a place that takes many of the things in the don't recycle list.
Every community should be so lucky. We all could be, if only it weren't all privatized.
Local authorities here have a great composting program that is 100% voluntary. Very unlike the socialist system in USSR West.
i'm a 'certified master composter' and you can compost anything that was "once living". i might add that i'm a cold-composter - i pile it on and let nature take it's course.
"everything once living" includes dryer lint (we wear lots of cotton and cotton-blend clothes). have freezer-burned meat? bury it deep in your compost pile.
bury it deep enough and you can compost anything that once lived. the only thing we don't compost are oils and fats.
How does one become a "certified master composter"? I just started composting this year-both vermicomposting and barrel composting.
You can also save those types of meat product scraps and give them to someone's dog.
"Diseased" plants? lol, try deceased
lol good one
They do mean "diseased". If a plant has mold, or fungus or some other disease, you don't want to compost it, as the mold or fungus could spread. They explain that right in the article.
If your compost pile is heating up as much as it should, mold and/or diseased plants shouldn't be a problem. The heat from the pile will usually kill the unwanted organisms. And like everything else, one has to use good judgment. Really nasty, diseased plants should go in the trash, but stuff with some diseased leaves and such...compost away.
sounds like your the onley one with a brain
Just about anything you compost could potentially attract pests...ie dogs, racoons, possums, insects, etc... If you are that worried about it I wouldn't be gardening in the first place....
that is a good point.
I dislike this article because recycling facility and composting contract is willing to accept some of the items listed in the do not recycle/ compost list. Therefore, people should check with their facilities and this generalized list should be disregarded.
Good point about checking local facilities and their acceptable lists, but in general the blog list is very good.
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