As we saw in the post about bottle recycling, separating different types of materials for recycling requires a lot of machinery, energy, and effort. What we'd like to see in the future is more companies like BWAY Corporation, which manufactures the Eco-Pail. It's an environmentally-friendly twist on the five-gallon buckets you've seen everything from paint to joint compound being lugged around in. Because they've replaced the standard metal wire handle with a Plastic Eco-Handle produced from recycled materials, the entire thing can be tossed into a recycling grinder, no separation required. (And yes, the handle is just as strong.)

Besides the Eco-Pail, BWAY has 270 containers of all shapes and sizes--drums, pails, cans, buckets, bottles, you name it--all made from recyclable metal or plastic.

Most of their product--roughly 75%--goes towards industrial applications, explaining the no-nonsense designs. Another 20% goes into food packaging.

And as for that remaining 5% of their business? They make some pretty bad-ass ammunition boxes.

The military-spec containers are air-tight, water-tight, stackable, and sturdy as hell. I badly want to buy some of these, but can't decide if I prefer the ones for 7.62mm ammunition or the larger bad boys designed to hold 81mm mortar shells.