Few things give you that pat-yourself-on-the-back feeling. Even so, recycling can sometimes feel like a backbreaking endeavor, with the sorting, stacking, stashing, and remembering to haul it where it needs to go. But recycling is worth the effort. The number of landfills in the United States has dropped by about 62 percent since 1988, and now nearly one-third of the nation's solid waste is recycled. Real Simple has done all of the trash talking to find the right household system that will accommodate anyone's arcane local laws.

Set Up the System in Five Steps

1. Do your homework. Check with your local collection center, and find out what it accepts and rejects. With more than 9,700 curbside recycling programs and about 12,000 drop-off centers across the country, all but 16 percent of Americans have access to recycling, according to the National Recycling Coalition. Residents in some areas face fines for not recycling. (New York City residents, for example, face up to a $500 ticket.)

2. Study your trash. What you use most will determine the type and size of the containers you'll require. If you need diet soda like you need air, then you'll want a larger bin for cans and bottles.

3. Create convenience. Ideally, your home recycling center will be a two-part system one part for everyday disposal and the other for storing. The everyday part should be where you generate the most waste — for many, the kitchen. The spot should be as accessible as the trash can, perhaps right next to it. If you are short on space, consider hanging sturdy shopping bags on the inside of a pantry door. Sorting is a tiresome truth of recycling, so why do it twice? Get a divided container that lets you separate as you dispose. (Try the compartmentalized wicker bin from Waste-Not-Baskets; 16-inch basket, $79, www.waste-not-basket.com.)

4. Pick a storage space. When your kitchen bins fill up, move their contents to a storage spot (separate from the household stamping grounds) until it's time to drop off at the curb or a center. Consider the garage, laundry room, mudroom, or utility closet. Containers should be easy to transport, so look for ones with wheels. If your community has return deposits on cans and bottles, separate them, too, for returns.

5. Post local guidelines. It's a good reminder for your family, and the quick reference makes recycling easier. Use a Magic Marker to write what goes where.

As You Separate...

Rinse the container if it held food or drink.

Reduce volume by breaking down boxes, crushing cans (not against your forehead), and flattening plastic bottles, unless your return-deposit laws mandate that cans and bottles must be intact.

Most recycling centers ask only that the main recyclables (plastic, paper, metal, and glass) be separated from one another, not sorted within each group.

Plastics
Look at the bottom of most any plastic container and you'll find the triangular-arrows recycling logo around a number. Some communities won't process certain types of plastic (that is, they'll take a number 2 soda bottle but not a number 5 moisturizer bottle). Most programs will recycle numbers 1 and 2, whereas numbers 3 to 7 are less likely to be recycled and should be reused or discarded.

Paper
Check with your local program to see which kinds of paper are accepted.

In some cases, you can leave the plastic windows in envelopes when you recycle them. If your center accepts mixed paper, you can include postcards, greeting cards, and junk mail.

Newspapers can be bundled or placed in brown paper bags for collection.

Some phone-book distributors offer special services for recycling last year's book.

Don't recycle paper products that have food on them, which contaminates the paper (pizza boxes with stalactites of cheese on the lid, for example).

Metals

Recycle aluminum (most beverage cans, pet-food cans, aluminum foil, take-out containers, and disposable baking pans) and steel bi-metal (beer and soft-drink cans).

Some programs require that canned goods have the labels removed.

Aerosol cans and paint cans must be completely empty.

An easy way to tell if metal is recyclable is to hold a kitchen magnet to it--a magnetic metal is not recyclable.

Glass

Separate by color only if your local center requires it.

You do not have to remove labels.

Steel and plastic lids must be removed but can be recycled with like materials.

Many household glasses, such as windows, ceramics, lightbulbs, mirrors, drinking glasses, and Pyrex, cannot be recycled.