This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Ideally, rolling recycling containers are stored and deployed in the back alleys along with trash cans. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night.

If you have not done so already, don’t forget to sign up for your Recycling Perks.
In order to take your recycling to the next level, read this: 10 ways to improve your recycling.

Think you know how to recycle? Look for the new labels on your favorite products to find out if they’re recyclable nationwide, recyclable on a local level or not yet recyclable. This way you’ll know which products you can avoid sending the landfill. Click here for more info.

In worrisome recycling news, scrap prices have continued to fall, putting a strain on recycling outfits everywhere. From the linked article:

About 90 percent of the 8 billion soda cans sold in California every year get turned in for recycling and a 5¢ refund. But cheaper commodity prices, plus lower Chinese demand for America’s used bottles and cans, have upended the economics of the state’s recycling industry. Over the past two years, California’s recycling rate has fallen enough to relegate more than 2 billion containers a year to landfills.

That said, the amount of energy conserved by recycling a single aluminum can should give everyone incentive to continue to recycle- recycling a single aluminum can saves 96% of the energy used to make a can from ore. The equivalent energy could power a television for over 3 hours.