Recycling For Charity

The benefits of recycling are well documented but that doesn’t mean you can’t find a way to do even more good by recycling for a cause. It’s certainly easy and responsible to put materials into curbside containers for recycling but if you look around you can find charities in your area that are recycling items to help people in need.

Recycling To Raise Money

You may recycle simply to dispose of waste responsibly, but your city recycles because it makes money. Processing plants buy recyclables, convert them into raw materials and then sell those materials to manufacturers. This flow of money is what has made the practice attractive to so many private and public organizations across the country.

Some nonprofit organizations use the same strategy: collecting items to recycle and create an income stream. They put out containers for recycling plastic, glass, aluminum or other top cash producers, and depend on the kindness of their donors to provide a supply of the valuable materials. This can be especially effective in states like California and Michigan, which have state deposit programs that pay consumers who turn in empty beverage containers.

Recycling For Reuse

Recycling is only part of the ecological triad of reduction, reuse and recycling. Long before the first curbside programs began, organizations put out containers for recycling clothing or toys for those in need. Today these programs have expanded to cover nearly everything you can think of, including:
•    Toiletries and linens for domestic abuse shelters, since the residents have often left home with literally nothing but the clothes on their backs.
•    Furniture for military families or previously homeless families
•    Cell phones so active duty military personnel can call home
•    Books to promote literacy in other countries, or even in schools and prisons right here in the U.S.
•    Computers allow poor school districts to provide better education
•    Suits and dresses gives the unemployed poor a chance to make a good impression at a job interview

Investigate Before You Donate

Unfortunately even the nonprofit realm attracts its share of unscrupulous people. You should never give money, time or possessions to an organization you haven’t checked out first. Nowadays it only takes a few seconds on the web to find out everything there is to know about a company, including whether or not it is a legitimate charity.

One popular practice is to put out containers for recycling clothing or other materials in shopping center parking lots. Although these organizations don’t actually say they are charities, thus are not technically breaking the law, their use of the word “donate” on their containers implies that they are nonprofit organizations. In reality they are often for-profit stores looking for free inventory to sell.

Recycling can be even more rewarding when you are helping people directly. Look around your community for charitable containers for recycling everything from paper to shoes and give your recycling efforts even more value.