All this week, we’ll try to answer your questions about things that can or can’t be recycled.  I get viewer e-mails often about odd objects and interesting items.  Oftentimes many of them can be recycled or reused and we just don’t think about it.

For instance, wire hangers.  Dry cleaners hand out 20 million wire hangers a year - just in the Las Vegas valley alone - with dry cleaned clothing.  Did you know that those hangers can be recycled and used again?  Simply ask your dry cleaner if they will take back the wire hangers once you’ve either worn or transferred your clothes to your own closet hangers.  Most of the time they will.  If they don’t - then find one that does, like Boston Cleaners.  They have started a program called “Hangers With Heart” where they will donate ten cents per hanger to two local charities: Communities in Schools and Friends of Red Rock Canyon.  Boston Cleaners estimates they will raise about $1000 per quarter for the organizations.

And what about pizza boxes?  They’re made of corrugated carboard - they should be recyclable!  But because the greasy cheesy treat that arrives inside the box, most often they are too dirty to put in the recycling bin.  Food is the worst contaminant for paper recycling because the oils pool at the top of the slurry of water and paper and the paper fibers cannot bind to each other.  It can actually ruin an entire batch of recycled paper.  But part of the box is salvagable!  If the lid is clean, just the cut that off and put it in the bin, then toss the greasy bottom in the trash.  Contaminated recyclables can cost a city millions of dollars in damaged equipment and manpower to sort through dirty recycling.  So knowing what can go into the recycle bin in the first place - saves us all time and money, and the planet some valuable resources.