Practices to Use Less Plastic

• Take your own bags when you shop.
• Decline the plastic utensils in your take-out orders.
• Stop buying plastic bottles of water; use refillable bottles.
• Avoid using plastic straws.

Change of Habits

• Rinse, dry, and reuse lightly used plastic bags.
• Use paper bags or waxed paper instead of plastic, even for small stuff like treats and sandwiches.
• Buy what you can, such as laundry detergent and kitty litter, in more readily recycled boxes instead of plastic containers.

♻️ Recycle

• Plastic bags in the handy bins at local grocery stores (for example, just outside the front door at the Giant Food on Crabbs Branch Road in Derwood.)
• At home on trash collection days, placing paper/cardboard vs. plastic/glass/metal in separate blue recycle bins.
• To find out what is and is not acceptable in plastics recycling at the nearby Shady Grove Transfer Station (16101 Frederick Road, Derwood), view these MoCo Department of Environmental Protection pages:
  • How to recycle/dispose of plastic bags and film
  • How to recycle/dispose of plastic bottles, containers, tubs, and lids

Did You Know?

• The liner bags in cereal boxes, baking mixes, and many other boxed items are plastic bags that can be rinsed and reused or recycled in the grocery store bin?  (Nope…they don’t belong in paper recycling.)

What Else?

• Teach your children good practices to avoid wasting plastic.

Small steps add up!