3 Crucial Facts You Should Know About Recycling Your Old Reading Material

If you love the written word and you do not want it to needlessly take up valuable space in a landfill, it is important to learn about your options for recycling it. As part of that, you should be aware of specific guidelines that pertain to your ability to recycle your old reading material. For instance, it is usually easy to find a recycling center for your old magazines, but it can be more challenging to convert old books into a new item. You should also avoid shredding any paper that you hope to recycle. Read on to learn more about what and how you can recycle your old reading materials.

#1 - Entire Magazines Can Typically Be Recycled

One common misconception that people have relates to the ability of color images and glossy pages to be recycled. It is true that before recycling was as common and accessible as it is in many communities today, anything that was not black and white was more expensive or too difficult to recycle. Fortunately, today's technology allows any magazine to be recycled, regardless of its age and its contents.

In addition, you do not need to prepare your old magazines for recycling. It is common for recycling centers to have technology in place that will remove staples and paper clips. However, you may want to remove them since they can also be reused or recycled.

#2 - Some Books Are Easy To Recycle . . . But Not All

When you are ready to get rid of your old hardcover books, there are important facts to consider. Specifically, not all recycling centers are willing to accept hardcover books. If they do, you may be asked to make some modifications to the books in question. One typical modification will be to simply remove the front, back, and spine of the book, in order to compensate for the challenges associated with recycling hardcovers and the glue that connects the pages to the spine and cover.

Fortunately, paperbacks can typically be recycled much more easily, and even the colored covers rarely pose a problem.

#3 - You Should Not Shred Your Old Reading Material If You Want To Recycle It

You have undoubtedly heard how important it is shred your old important papers and it is easy to assume that by shredding old magazines or newspapers, you are making things easier. The truth is that by doing so, you are limiting the future use of that paper and some recycling centers will be reluctant to accept it.

That is due to the fact that when you shred any paper, the fibers within it are shortened. Shorter fibers mean that the paper diminishes in grade from high to mixed. As a result, instead of being used for writing or printing paper after being recycled, it is now more likely to be used to make tissue paper or egg cartons.

In conclusion, you probably already know how important it is to recycle. If you keep meaning to recycle and it's never been a good time to do so, it is a good idea to start a new path to recycling with something easy like your old reading material.  

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