Sorting
Successful recycling requires clean recovered paper, so you must keep your paper free from contaminants, such as food, plastic, metal, and other trash, which make paper difficult to recycle. Contaminated paper which cannot be recycled must be composted, burned for energy, or landfilled. Recycling centers usually ask that you sort your paper by grade, or type of paper. Your local recycling center can tell you how to sort paper for recycling in your community. To locate your nearest dealer, look in the yellow pages of your phone book under “waste paper” or “recycling.”
Collection and Transportation
You may take your sorted paper to a local recycling center or recycling bin. Often, a paper stock dealer or recycling center will collect recovered paper from your home or office. Your local dealer can tell you the options available in your community. At the recycling center, the collected paper is wrapped in tight bales and transported to a paper mill, where it will be recycled into new paper.