M IXED R ECYCLING

B EFORE R ECYCLING  Always remember REDUCING comes first.  Recycling is better than throwing away materials, but the products still were made.  Creating anything, takes energy and resources.  Energy and resources should be conserved.  Before purchasing ask--How was this product mined, logged, built?

W HAT IS M IXED R ECYCLING ?  Recycling means turning trash into something useful.  Mixed recycling is the recycling of many different types of plastics, metals and paper into new products.  Allied Recycling picks up our mixed recyclables. Here is a video showing how it works: bank-cycle.php

W HY DO MIXED RECYCLING ? E NVIRONMENTAL B ENEFITS  Recycling turns what could be waste into useful products.  At MPS, Allied Waste takes our mixed recycling and sends it to mills, which turn plastics back into plastic, paper back into paper, cardboard back into cardboard and aluminum back into aluminum!

W HY DO MIXED RECYCLING ? E NVIRONMENTAL B ENEFITS  Recycling almost always saves energy.  Using recycled aluminum scrap to make new aluminum cans uses 95% less energy than making aluminum cans from bauxite ore, the raw material used to make aluminum.  Recycled cans are typically back on the self in two months.  The EPA found that recycling can reduce climate change.

W HY DO MIXED RECYCLING ? E NVIRONMENTAL B ENEFITS  Recycling means manufactures do not have to mine virgin materials.  Mining can be very harmful to the environment, and a very dangerous occupation.  Mining for Gold, which is used in many electronics is particularly dangerous, and harmful because gold is mainly found in remote locations.  Extracting a single ounce of gold—the amount in a typical wedding ring—requires the removal of more than 250 tons of rock and ore, even in model gold mines Surface mining

W HY DO MIXED RECYCLING ? E NVIRONMENTAL B ENEFITS  Reduces Waste Waste and what to do with it is a growing problem. Each year in Hennepin County we generate enough waste to fill the Metro Dome 11 times! That’s about seven pounds of trash per person, per day! MPS waste is sent to the HERC incinerator Pictures from the HERC incinerator, MPR Photo/Stephanie Hemphill

W HY DO MIXED RECYCLING ? E DUCATIONAL B ENEFITS  Provides an opportunity to learn where products come from and what happens to them after we finish with them.  Provides an opportunity to think about our daily actions. How do our actions affect the earth, and how does what happens to earth affect us?  MPS also created Green Reports for each school. These give each buildings carbon footprint, and can be used to see how buildings match-up.

MPS M IXED R ECYCLING PROCEDURES  Place blue mixed recycling bins in convenient, noticeable and busy areas. Hallways Classrooms Cafeteria  Make sure recycling bins are not too full  So people aren’t forced to use the trash instead of recycling.  Prominently display recycling signs and information.

M IXED R ECYCLING P ROCEDURES  Don’t forget your electronics can also be recycled.  Electronics contain metal, which takes tremendous amounts of energy to extract, and is often done in dangerous and polluting ways.  Recycling electronics is a way to avoid those problems, because the metal in electronics can be re-used reducing the need to mine  Cell phones, and computers and often re-fitted and given to people in need.

MPS M IXED R ECYCLING PROCEDURES  Stop and think before you put something in the trash.  Ask, “Can it be recycled?”

MPS M IXED R ECYCLING PROCEDURES  At MPS there is no sorting. All mixed recycled materials go in blue recycling bins