Recycling
What can I leave out at the curb to recycle? Where can I drop off my recycling? What about those things that don't go in the regular recycling bin? Find out all you need to know about recycling in the Truckee Meadows right here.
The following items can be recycled curbside or at the dropoff sites:
- Glass bottles & jars
- Aluminum cans
- Steel cans
- Plastic bottles
- Newspapers
- Magazines
Plastic and glass bottles and jars can be recycled with the labels still on. Please remove lids.
Recycling Facts
One recycled aluminum can saves enough energy to power a television or a computer for 3 hours or a 100-watt light bulb for 20 hours. A six-pack of recycled aluminum cans saves enough energy to drive a car 5 miles.
Recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to light a 100-watt light bulb for 4 hours.
Recycling a one-gallon plastic milk jug will save enough energy to keep a 100-watt bulb burning for 11 hours.
Recycling one pound of steel conserves enough energy to light a 60-watt bulb for 26 hours.
Recycling a one-foot high stack of newspapers saves enough electricity to heat a home for 17 hours.
The United States produces the most garbage in the world.
People within the United States throw away 4.4 pounds of waste per person per day.
It takes 80-100 years for an aluminum can to decompose.
It takes 1,000,000 years for a glass bottle to decompose.
No one knows how long it takes for a plastic bottle to decompose.
Glass, plastic, and aluminum cans can be recycled over and over again.
To help reduce waste you can take advantage of curbside recycling, don't litter, and watch for the recycled label on new purchases.
Christmas
Trees
Every year Keep Truckee Meadows Beautiful (KTMB) coordinates the annual Christmas Tree Recycling campaign for the Truckee Meadows area. While providing the community with a convenient means to dispose of cut Christmas trees, this program also preserves landfill space, limits illegal dumping, improves air quality through reduced green wood burning, provides mulch for area park and open space projects and models effective conservation practices for our present and future. Click here for more information.
Paper Making
Paper Making is a fun, hands on way of seeing how easy it is to recycle something old into something new. Using torn up Phone Book pages or shredded office paper, Keep Truckee Meadows Beautiful Staff and/or Volunteers can show your group or classroom how to recycle old paper into new paper. Funded by the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, this is a fun activity for Earth Day and every day!
KTMB offers staffed paper making workshops for groups of 70 or more. For smaller groups we offer the equipment and program guide to staff your own workshop. For more information about paper making or to schedule a presentation for your group or classroom, contact maia@beautiful.reno.nv.us or call 775.851.5185.
Paper Making Instructions
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Paper Making Discussion
(32 KB)
Phone Books
Since 1991 SBC, Keep Truckee Meadows Beautiful (KTMB), RSW/Recycle America Alliance and Scolari’s have worked together to promote phone book recycling in the Truckee Meadows and surrounding areas. Collecting over 150 tons of phone books annually, phone book recycling has become an important component in preserving trees, energy resources and reducing waste in our local landfills and providing paper for more phone books in other communities. For every ton of phone books recycled 17 trees, 6,953 gallons of water, 463 gallons of oil and enough landfill space to occupy a Volkswagon bug is saved. Three hundred and fifty-five SBC Reno, Sparks and Carson City phone directories make a ton. Click here for more information.