It’s National Recycling Week! It will probably not surprise you to learn that No Award has a lot of feelings about recycling. (NO, COFFEE CUPS AREN’T RECYCLABLE OKAY)
things no award yells when putting their recycling in the communal recycling bins
DON’T PUT YOUR RECYCLING IN PLASTIC BAGS
UGH BISCUIT TRAYS AREN’T RECYCLABLE (plastic recycling test: how easy is it to crush the plastic? if it’s mostly difficult, you can recycle it. a plastic bottle, even a really light mt franklin one, is recyclable. a tim tam tray is not recyclable) (ETA it turns out some councils can recycle this! as always pls check your local council deets)
DON’T LEAVE PIZZA CRUSTS IN THE PIZZA BOX (Side note: tear your pizza box in half, removing the lid. recycle the lid. The base, covered as it is in oil and food grease and maybe cow product, is no longer recyclable due to its food to paper ratio)
NAPPIES. NAPPIES DO NOT BELONG IN YOUR RECYCLING BIN.
THESE PACKAGING BALLS ARE DEFS NOT RECYCLABLE
OH GLOB, DEFS NOT ELECTRONICS COME ON
(this includes batteries)
(contact your local council to find out your next electronics recycling date)
(you might be able to drop your batteries at your local library)
TAKE THE LIDS OFF THE BLOODY BOTTLES
FLATTEN BOXES SO WE CAN FIT MORE SHIT IN COME ON
SAY NO TO PRINGLES
coffee cups aren’t recyclable D: D: they have a plastic or wax inner coating and a cardboard outer coating. biodegradable coffee cups are just cups that break down faster in landfill. (compostable coffee cups are only compostable in commercial compost bins, not home compost bins)
WHY CAN’T YOU JUST BUY A KEEP CUP COME ON
YES LIDS ARE RECYCLABLE
UGH you don’t have to wash them, just scrape out that extra food!
(Steph will admit to sometimes being too lazy to scrape, and so instead of contaminating a whole recycling load she just throws the jar in the waste bin)
I DON’T CARE IF YOU BROKE YOUR MIRROR, IT DOESN’T GO IN THE RECYCLING BIN
ALSO
Goon boxes: recycle
Goon bags: please check with your local council
Okay, actually, Steph has to stop yelling. PLEASE ASK ME YOUR RECYCLING QUESTIONS. Wait, now I’m stopping yelling.
Thanks to Planet Ark for this EXCELLENT infographic.
Anyway, Steph loves talking about waste and recycling.
no-award.net 
AND THEN those people who LEAVE THEIR BIN OUTSIDE FOR THREE DAYS even though they keep walking past numerous times it to go in and out and then for whatever reason they decide they better take the bin inside on day four AND THEN those people who spy out their windows and obsess about said people who leave their bins out *cough*
Our recycling gets dropped in a box before being put into the (yellow-topped) recycling bin – and since there’s only two of us, and it’s a standard sized council bin, I rinse all the containers in order to keep the smell down. It appears there may be differences in processor capabilities from state to state. Our local council provides us with an annual guide on what’s supposed to go where, and certainly here in the City of Cockburn in WA, waxed cardboard and paper are considered recyclable, as are pizza boxes and broken glass of all kinds (although I’m more likely to just drop broken glass into the little bin which goes in the non-recyclables bin, because I don’t want to take the chance it’s going to cut me on the way out of the box).
To be honest, with a lot of things I’m more likely to try and re-use them than recycle or bin them – kitchen vegetable waste goes straight on the garden, teabags are dried out, then the tea-dust from them is collected to go into the garden (in one of those little containers places like KFC and Chicken Treat use for a small potato & gravy) while the papers go into the recycling. Plastic containers with sealable lids tend to be retained and washed, because I can always find a use for them (leftovers storage if nothing else) and small and medium Moccona coffee jars are infinitely recyclable as spice and condiment jars. The jars pasta sauce comes in are just the right size to hold a standard packet of soup mix, beans, pearl barley, or soup pasta. I used to save every jar I bought, but these days I’m a bit more restrained – one 9L box of them is plenty. The current container I’m using to hold kitchen scraps before putting them out on the garden is a chicken tray from Coles (just plain plastic; washable when needed).