Why isn't wrapping paper recyclable?

For many Waukesha County residents, recycling is no-brainer. After all, why send our bottles, cans and newspapers to the landfill when they could instead be given a second life as a raw material for another product?

So when it comes to Christmas, it's likely that many of us would be happy to stick our wrapping paper in the recycling bin as well. Unfortunately, Waukesha County Recycling advises that "wrapping paper is generally not recyclable through our facility at this time."

Wrapping paper is "generally" not recyclable largely because of the foil and metallic materials often embedded in the paper, said Karen Fiedler of the county's recycling office. Wrapping paper also frequently has other non-recyclable things like bows and ribbons attached to it.

Some types of wrapping paper - plain paper with no embedded metals, no metallic inks or coatings and without anything attached to it - is actually recyclable, but it's hard to tell people that some wrapping paper is OK and some isn't, so the county just advises against all of it.

Interestingly, there's something new in holiday recycling this year: Christmas lights are now recyclable. Because of the high value of copper, it's become financially worthwhile for scrap dealers to collect unwanted or broken Christmas lights and recover the metal in the wiring. Lights should be brought to one of the electronics recycling drop-off sites listed at www.waukeshacounty.gov/electronicsrecycling.

What do you want to know? E-mail your questions to nowyouknow@wi.rr.com.