How many times have you broken a wine glass or a vase and thought, I'll just put this in the recycling bin. Glass is glass, right? The reality is, if you break a non-food container type of glass, throw it in the trash. Sturdier glass for bakeware, vases, drinking glasses, mixing bowls, measuring cups and anything else that didn’t come packaged with food needs to be separated from the recycling bin. Those glasses don’t melt at the same temperature as glass used for food packaging, so when it mixes in with food packaging glass, it can contaminate a whole load and make glass recycling nearly impossible.

Another reason to avoid artificial fragrance: It can confuse bees. Bees are vital to the natural world for the important work they do to pollinate flowers. They are naturally attracted to the sweet-smelling scent from flowers, but are also attracted to artificial scents found in body washes, perfumes, shampoo, air fresheners and scented candles. This confusion can lead to less pollination of flowers. One way to help is to choose fragrance-free options whenever possible, since even trace amounts of artificial scent can be transferred outdoors.

After opening up gifts, don’t toss gift wrap into the paper recycling bin. Yes, gift wrap is paper, but it’s usually coated with a shiny laminate that makes it nearly impossible to recycle. The same goes for the ribbons, string and tissue paper you might get. If you throw these into a paper recycling bin, they can contaminate a load of recyclable paper, and guess what? The whole bin will get tossed into the landfill. Keep gift wrap (and related accessories) out and consider wrapping gifts with recyclable paper like newsprint and kraft paper in the future.