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Houston-Galveston Regional Recycling Guide

Produce Less Waste by Practicing the 3 Rs:

• Reduce the amount and toxicity of trash you discard.
• Reuse containers and products; repair what is broken or give it to someone who can repair it.
• Recycle as much as possible, which includes buying products with recycled content.

Reduce

Waste prevention, or "source reduction," means consuming and throwing away less. It includes:

• purchasing durable, long-lasting goods;
• seeking products and packaging that are as free of toxics as possible;
• redesigning products to use less raw material in production, & longer life.

Reuse

Recycle

Recycling is one of the best environmental success stories of the late 20th century. Recycling, including composting, diverted 79 million tons of material away from landfills and incinerators in 2005, up from 34 million tons in 1990. By 2002, almost 9,000 curbside collection programs served roughly half of the American population. Curbside programs, along with drop-off and buy-back centers, resulted in a diversion of about 32 percent of the nation's solid waste in 2005.

Buying Recycled Products