So I'm pretty interested in learning about recycling.  Partly because I work in the recycling business.  Nuclear fuel recycling.  (maybe not what you first had in mind).  And I'm slowly realizing that recycling consumer goods (paper, plastics, electronics, ...) is complicated.  Maybe not as complicated as recycling nuclear fuel, but still, as I started to discuss in this post on recycling plastics, I think most people are not well-informed of WHAT you can and can not recycle.  And moreover, you may have really good intentions, but it's also important HOW you recycle too, because if you throw everything in the recycling bin (ahem, like I used to), and there's a greasy container, or some juice left in that carton, that whole "lot" of recycled goods, might have to end up in the trash.

When you are out of a "school system", what is an effective way to communicate to communities about things like recycling "dos" and "don'ts"???

Moral of the story - recycling is obviously great - but it's complicated and not very effective unless you do it correctly - so get to know the norms in your neighborhood.  And better yet -- what's even better than recycling, -- wait for it -- is reducing and reusing.  Yes, some of those things we learned when we're young, like the quadratic formula, stick with us forever.

Reduce.  Reuse.  And then - Recycle.

This comic by XKCD is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.