As recycling gains momentum from coast to coast, consumers are getting the chance to practice sorting paper and plastic at home. Many of us are noticing our own footprints on the environment, and we're demanding that our cities and suburbs find better ways to reduce, reuse and recycle.

But in the Pacific Northwest, recycling is not just part of a new, hip trend to go green. Sorting has been a way of life for decades.

Magnets, shaking screens and the 'air knife'
Seattle's recycling company, Allied Waste Services, and its predecessors have been recovering reusable materials since World War II, when it collected metal and rags for the war effort. The region was an early adopter of the practice of recycling food scraps and paper fiber in the 1960s. In the 1980s, the company built one of the first materials recovery facilities that could handle paper, plastic, glass and metal mingled together. And Seattle has been on the cutting edge of waste reduction ever since.

Today, deep in the heart of Seattle's industrial district, the biggest recycling plant west of the Mississippi River can be found. And it's one of the most sophisticated sorting plants in the world.

At the Allied plant, recyclable materials rattle through magnetic screens and whir on conveyor belts into bins that sort paper from metal. Another screen shakes the glass loose. Then, an optical device called an "air knife" recognizes the different types of plastic and blows each piece individually into separate containers.

One bin
These complex contraptions are part of an evolving process that has made recycling easy and effective in the Seattle area. Because consumers can throw all of their recyclables -- newspapers, milk jugs, metal cans and even rinsed-out mayonnaise jars -- into one bin, more people make sorting a daily habit.

But recycling programs are different in different parts of the country. To make a program effective, everyone must follow the rules. Good consumers learn what kinds of products they can recycle, and how their city or county wants them separated.

Sometimes people in Seattle want to recycle so much, they put items in the recycling bin that can't be recovered, such as old jeans and plastic wrap. So, workers at the Allied plant also stand along the 2,000 feet of conveyors and screens to pick out these items, which can jam the system.

Through this process, Seattle's recyclables are turned into compacted cubes and bins of high-grade materials -- paper fiber, plastic, metal and glass -- that manufacturers all over the world use to make new stuff like fleece for clothing, new drinking bottles and more newsprint.

Also part of the city's success is a vast transportation system of railroads and a busy seaport to ship recycled commodities. Each month, the facility processes 17,000 tons of recyclable material, keeping that waste from entering a landfill.

Really knowing the 'three R's'
The entire system for sustaining the health of our environment and ourselves starts at home with conscientious consumers who know the three R's. You can reduce -- buy less and buy products with minimal or no packaging; reuse -- take reusable shopping bags to the store, and discover how to use old products in new ways; and recycle -- if there's a recycling program in your town, learn how to make the most use of it. And if your town doesn't have a recycling program, work with your elected representatives and business community to create one.