Now that Christmas is over it's time for Iowans to take down their decorations. Before you decide to toss them into the trash, the general manager at a Des Moines recycling company tells WHO-TV 13 fifty percent of Americans don’t recycle, which he says is a more suitable option.
“We cannot keep dumping into the landfills the stuff that can be recycled and can be repurposed into something else,” Junk King General Manager, Todd Kerr told WHO-TV 13.
Rubiconglobal.com said landfills are among the biggest contributors to soil pollution and the U.S Environmental Protection Agency also noted that landfills are the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the U.S.
Many may think their Christmas decorations aren’t a big deal, but Kerr says there’s a 25% increase in the garbage that we produce between Thanksgiving and New Years Day. He believes if everybody does their little part in recycling those decorations it can go a long way.
When it comes to those holiday decorations, anything that is made out of regular paper or plastic can be recycled and anything that is metallic, laminate, glittery or contaminated with food cannot be.
Kerr said if you’re having a hard time figuring out what goes where, just bring your decorations to a recycling company and they’ll do the grunt work for you. Not only will they recycle your items but they’ll repurpose them as well.