We are very lucky to be given the chance to recycle when possible. We routinely recycle our household items of plastic, paper, metals, and glass. However, plenty of things end up in landfills that do not need to be there! Here are six surprising things you didn’t know you can recycle.
You’re not alone — Most people don’t even realize it! You’re likely already recycling in your house, but if you can recycle even more, wouldn’t you? Let’s look at six things you could recycle right now, starting with water.
1. Water.
Yes, you can recycle your water! You can buy a water tank and start saving the rainwater that your home would usually run off into the drains.
Recycling the water means either using it for the garden or fitting it with a filtration system and drinking it or using it in the house! You can use rainwater as recycled water perfectly safely.
2. OK, so you can recycle trash. Seriously.
There are companies out there that will pay you for your trash, and this works exceptionally well if you run a business that accumulates a lot of it. They’ll donate money to your cause for every piece of trash you send them.
Your old mattress might seem like garbage to you, but you can donate it to a charity and help someone rest well tonight. Or, recycle the mattress as suggested in our recent guide.
3. Wine corks.
Okay, so I’m not judging, but if wine corks are something that tends to fill up your trash bins, then do the right thing and recycle them. You won’t get paid much for your corks, but you can still make a few cents with them!
You can bet that there are craft-makers and other individuals out there who will find a use for your old wine corks. That gives the cork material use over and over again.
4. Gift cards.
Are you lucky enough to receive gift cards for birthdays and holidays? Well, you can trade them in on sites that take the unused cards and send you a check so you can have the cash. Sure, it won’t be as much, but it’s better than leaving it in the drawer!
5. You can recycle oil.
Restaurant owners will love this one, but old oil can be recycled. There are companies out there that will pay for used cooking oil.
They’ll reuse it in home heating systems and then for other items like movie tickets and bus passes. It’s not much per gallon, but it’s better than tipping it out somewhere.
Surprise, cigarette waste can be recycled too!
6. Human hair.
Believe it or not, you can sell human hair! There are sites that will buy it and it depends on the type and length of hair as to how much you’ll get for it.
You can find plenty of buyers out there willing to pay for human hair to turn into wigs and hair extensions. If you are planning to cut your hair off, consider offering it to Locks of Love, which is a charity for those who have lost their hair through illness.
You may not have before, but now you know what you can recycle that will make a difference to the planet! Recycle surprising things and feel good about helping our Earth.
From water to human hair – its quite interesting to know. Thank you for the post…
Interesting and informative post. :)
So glad it’s useful for you too, Carol! Congrats again on the new book xx
Lovely and informative post… 👌👌👌
:D
That was really interesting ! Never had heard of recycling oil
I love that you learned that here!
Interesting read, and never knew there were companies which pay for recycling rubbish as often people have to pay to have things like paper taken away hopefully to be recycled).
So glad that you learned that from this post! Thanks Victoria
Very interesting! For gift cards, I have learned to scrutinize them. Some cards that look like plastic are actually made out of paper.
Bring on the environmentally-friendly actions! Thanks Michelle
Oooo these are interesting – old oil can go into making movie tickets and bus passes? That’s amazing! I’ve actually got a recycling post drafted up to post in the near future but I cover a lot of the more common things, focusing on health/beauty products, books and so on. It’s fantastic that so many things are now able to be recycled and reused to help save the planet. Good shout on the bottle corks – regular wine drinkers will likely be binning a lot of those otherwise! xx
It’s so cool how far the recycling efforts have come over the years – Who knows what will be recyclable in the future? Thanks Caz, and I look forward to reading your eco-friendly post soon!