These days, recycling is everywhere. Recycled bags. Recycled toilet paper. You name a product, I bet you can find a version made from recycled goods. However, a lot of people are still forgetting the first step in the recycled process – to recycle items! Its not that they are deliberately not recycling, they just forget how much we actually can recycle. Below is a perfect example of this situation:

This past weekend I took a trip to my hometown in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. While I moved away years ago, my parents are kind enough to keep my childhood bedroom & bathroom intact so I’ll always have a familiar place to stay. My younger brother was feeling especially generous and cleaned my bathroom for me (clean by a 16-year old boy’s standards of course). What surprised me was not his gracious efforts, but the items he had tossed away, instead of recycling. I come from a long line of recycling addicts, so when he said he never realized some of these basic items, such as toilet paper cores, can be recycled, I was shocked.

To prevent further disasters, I put together a rough list of bathroom items that are safe to recycle:
- Toilet Paper cores
- Tissue boxes
- Soap Boxes
- Medicine Boxes
- Shampoo Bottles
- Mouthwash Bottles
- Contact Lens Solution
- Bottle with a “Neck” or “Screw-top”
- Shaving Cream cans
- Deodorant
- Air Fresheners
- Hairspray
- Other Aerosol cans

I think I’ve started a pretty solid list here, but if there are additional items you have questions about, please don’t ever hesitate to email me here. Whether its cleaning or recycling questions, I’m always happy to help.