But here you are trying to save the planet in eco-friendly manner, while the boxes of pizza and cans of soda fill your dorm room. Installing a recycling station right at home seems like something you could do for fun in your free time, since you’re already member of some scout troop or something. Well, you need nothing but a little strategy and some effort to have your own recycling station. No impossible feats required.

Firstly, choose your location. Traditional choice is a garage, although for apartment residents it might be even a corner of your kitchen. What you need is some area of the floor which will be convenient to reach, but won’t cause danger during your nightly snacking marathons. Don’t choose areas close to sources of heat or leaking pipes; wet cardboard is not something you can recycle.

Secondly, get your containment units. Colorful and expensive boxes from The Container Store are surely not the best way to empty your wallet. In reality, durable cardboard boxes or plastic totes from Walmart will do the same job for much less money. As long as they won’t burst because of the heavy glass bottles – they will be fine.

It’s time for some technical aspects now. All municipal recycling programs in the US use single stream method: all plastics, metals and glass go into the same bins. However, paper and cardboard still need separate bin. Just visit the website of your local municipal company, e.g. Republic Services or Waste Management and look for the rules of recycling which apply to your zip code.

There is one step you have to do before putting the garbage into the bin – rinse it. It will only require a quick splash of water to clean the residue of food: this attracts ants and makes your garbage smell bad. One crusty yogurt cup is enough to ruin the whole load of your recyclables and turn it into landfill garbage. It takes ten seconds per item – do it!

The next trouble people often encounter when dealing with plastic is numbers. Triangle on the package with numbers from 1 to 7 indicates the type of resin. Most curbside recycling programs accept only number one (PET) and number two (HDPE), like water jugs and milk cartons. Number six (Styrofoam) is theoretically recyclable, but not accepted by curbside programs. Throw it into the ordinary garbage.

Labeling is crucial if you don’t live alone at home. Thick black Sharpie and some capital, aggressive letters are needed to write “CANS AND BOTTLES” or “PAPER ONLY”. If you want to be fancy and creative – you can add an image of the acceptable item on the lid of the bin. It will help prevent your father from dumping a greasy pizza box into the paper bin.

Prepare a special place for hazardous materials, like batteries, old cell phones, LED bulbs and so on. These materials contain heavy metals which dissolve into the ground water. Good news is that most stores, like Best Buy or Home Depot have special containers near the entrance. It will be extremely easy to get rid of those.

Another important aspect of recycling is “wish-cycler”. It is a person who thinks that by putting something into the bin he/she automatically makes it recyclable. Plastic bags are the worst “wish-cyclers” as they clog machines in the recycling centers. Always return your loose grocery bags to the collecting point in your nearest Kroger or Target store.

Taking care of your recycling station will take you no more than five minutes a week. When the bin is full – immediately take it outside to avoid overflow. Flattening your cardboard boxes will allow you to increase capacity of your bins, as it is just a simple physics trick. Otherwise, you will end up with so much trash that you’ll stop recycling out of sheer laziness.

All this together doesn’t mean you should become a perfect environmentalist. The main goal of all this process is creating a frictionless system that will easily integrate into your everyday life. After installing your bins, throwing cans into them will become an unconscious act. And also you’ll be able to boast a little to your neighbors.