Place Small Home Recycle Bins In Key Locations To Encourage Recycling

Today's mission is to place small home recycle bins in key locations of your home to encourage recycling.


In the Declutter 365 calendar I've referred to this as creating "satellite" recycling centers in places in your home.

I know that word may have thrown some people off, but it was me trying to use shorthand when I had to say what the day's mission was in a very condensed space.

That's why I wanted to explain this mission a bit more because it is quite simple, and really shouldn't take you much time at all, but it can make a significant practical impact on you and your family actually recycling the items you can and should.

What Obstacles Are Holding You Back From Recycling?

I have never met anyone that is adamantly opposed to the concept of recycling. I think we all are pretty convinced we should do it. The problem comes in actual execution.

That's the way with many things in life.

So one of the points of organization and decluttering is to remove obstacles and barriers which are causing us not to do something we need or want to do.

In this case, in regard to recycling, for many people an obstacle to recycling is not having a convenient container to place the recyclables into close to where they used them.

Is it a major obstacles? No. You could, for example, walk the shampoo bottle from the bathroom over to the main recycling bin in the kitchen, or take the papers from your home office out to the garage to place with the other paper recycling. Obviously, yes you could. But the question is -- do you?

If you instead often throw those items in the trash bin, since it is right there handy in the bathroom or home office, we know that even though it is a minor obstacle it is holding you back from recycling.

Work With Your Habits & Place Containers For Collecting Recyclables Where You Need Them

Fortunately, this is easily rectified. All you've got to do is put a small container that you designate to hold recycling in these types of areas, that you will then periodically empty into the bigger main recycling bins in your home.

That's why I call these small recycle bins satellite containers -- they are the small orbits around your larger main home recycling center.

And my solution for emptying these small containers is to incorporate the habit into your (hopefully) already established habit of regularly emptying the trash cans throughout your house. When you do empty those trash cans, and consolidate all the trash to be taken out, go ahead and also just add the recycling you've collected from these satellite containers to the larger main recycling collection center then.

Where Should You Put These Small Containers?

The answer to this is very individual for your own family's needs and habits, but here are some places you should at least consider putting a small container to collect recyclables:

• Bathrooms


• Home office


• Laundry room

I typically suggest the kitchen, or adjacent to the kitchen for the main recycling center in your home, because that is where a large amount of your recyclable waste is generated. However, if because of space constraints your main collection area is somewhere else you should also have something in your kitchen.

In addition, depending on your family's activities in the garage, that is another area to consider having such a small collection station.

This really is a quick mission, but it can make a huge difference by just making it easier for you to drop that recyclable item into a container instead of a trash can.

Helpful hint, if needed, somehow differentiate the trash and other container, with color or label, or something else, just so people don't get confused about which is which!

Here are some available small recycling bins and containers you can use:

Small Recycling Bins {Referral Links}

Below are examples of such a satellite container shown by a reader. I'd love to see yours as well, once you put them into place, so submit your photos here and I'll add the best ones to the page!


Top photo courtesy of Amazon.com

Real Life Satellite Recycling Containers

Ellen said: "And just installed this weekend because of this challenge, in the upstairs bathroom, white for recyclables, silver for trash."

In addition, another reader, Brandy, also added a couple of containers. Brandy explained, "Ii actually just added a box for paper recycling just before the start of 2015 in the upstairs room where the kids do a lot of art projects and such. It's in a central location to all the bedrooms and the bathroom as well.

And recently instead of a plastic bag that was just getting in the way of opening a cabinet in the laundry room I'm now using an old coffee can for CFLs and batteries that need to be recycled. My family is already in a habit of taking the empty shampoo bottles downstairs when they are empty so no need for that to be upstairs in the bathroom."

Want To Do More Decluttering Missions? Get Started With Declutter 365 Today!

Once you declutter one type of item in your home I bet you'll want to declutter some more. After all, decluttering gives you a great reward for even a small investment of time and energy.

The Declutter 365 system is designed to help you declutter, over the course of a year, your entire house, with just 15 minutes of decluttering each day!

Hundreds of thousands of people use this proven system to get rid of their clutter, and bring peace and calm back to their homes.

Declutter 365 works to guide you to clear the clutter without overwhelm, focusing on just one small area at a time, and without making a huge mess in the process, so you see consistent forward progress without all that "messy middle" that makes it even harder to function in your home than before you started.

In addition to building a daily decluttering habit, the Declutter 365 program, along with the accompanying 52 Week Organized Home Challenge, teaches you the skills, habits, routines, and mindsets necessary to maintain the clutter free and organized state of your home from now on, so it'll never be as messy and cluttered as it is right now, ever again.

If you haven't already, make sure to get your copy of this year's Declutter 365 annual calendar here (it's FREE!), find today's date, and do 15 minutes of decluttering on the day's mission. Then, repeat again tomorrow, and again and again. Over the course of the next year, if you do this 15 minutes per day, you'll declutter your whole house!

Get This Miscellaneous Decluttering Checklist + 32 Other Decluttering Checklists For Your Home

Right now you're decluttering your home, and there's a lot of items to declutter.

Get your 2 page miscellaneous decluttering checklist, plus 32 other decluttering checklists, to help you declutter your entire home here.

I've done the hard work of breaking down these tasks into smaller more manageable steps for you, so you don't get overwhelmed or worry you're forgetting a task, and you can go at the pace you want, whether that's fast or slow.

In addition, you can tackle these decluttering tasks in whatever order you want when you use these checklists!

Related Pages You May Enjoy

Getting Clutter Free 15 Minutes At A Time Hall Of Fame

Simple Garbage & Trash Day Routine For Your Home

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