How many of you recycle? Does your town offer curbside recycling? Our town didnt, we didnt even have trash service, so rather than drive to the dump every week, I hired a private contractor to pick the trash and recycling up. I understand if your town doesnt offer it that it is difficult to do it, but if your town does offer it - do you take advantage of the program, and if not why?

By Marcia on Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 04:26 pm:

We recycle tons!! We have weekly pick up. I have a bin of cans/bottles/plastic, a bin of cardboard - ie cereal boxes, thin cardboard, a bag of paper, and lots of times a bundle of regular cardboard. We are allowed 5 garbage tins/bags each week. We have 2 garbage tins, and they are always full. If we didn't have 2 big kids in diapers, we'd half maybe one full tin.

By Dawnk777 on Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 04:55 pm:

We have curbside pick up. Garbage goes every week. One week they pick up newspaper and cardboard, and the next week the pick up glass and plastic in blue bags. Have to keep track which is a pain. We do have a calendar up in the kitchen that will tell us which it is if we forget, or we can look out the window to see what the neighbors are doing! LOL! I almost wish they picked up all recyclables every week. If you don't quite get around to picking up the newspapers, it is 2 more weeks before they leave the house!

You are only allowed 5 bags? What happens if you have more?? When we had our bad basement flood about 5 years ago, one week we had 20 bags and the following week, we had 10. Yes, people were staring as they drove past our house. But in other neighborhoods, the flooding was FAR worse and their garbage piles far higher. The garbage men worked very hard, but our discarded wet stuff was never on the curb for long.

By Clair~moderator on Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 05:53 pm:

Yes we recycle - paper, cans and glass and plastic.

By Boxzgrl on Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 06:53 pm:

I live on the miltary base so they have recycling trucks pick up every Friday. I have yet to take advantage of it and I won't make excuses, it is nothing more than the fact that i've been lazy. I do plan on it soon because I used to recycle EVERYTHING!!! In middle school I would recycle because that is how I learned to make money for my free time so it kinda stuck with me, until now.

By Palmbchprincess on Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 07:48 pm:

We are required to on post, but they make it eay on us. We throw all recyclables into a separate can, the same size as our trash bins, just a different color. Not having to separate them makes it much easier for me to remember to do it. On bag for recycling and one for trash are in my laundry room.

By Karen~moderator on Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 08:19 pm:

We have curbside pickup, we recycle newspapers, cans, plastic and glass. My DH insists on washing everything before it goes into the recycling bin. I tell him our garbage is cleaner than the plates in some restaurants we eat in. :-)

By Marcia on Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 09:05 pm:

LOL Karen, that's disgusting. ;o) I rinse it all, too, because I keep the recycle bins outside. I don't want bugs in there.
Yes, just 5 bags, but that's 5 green garbage bags. I use huge cans, so they can each fit at least 4 big bags. If I have more, I put one at someone else's place. My mom can only put out 2, so sometimes she leaves some here.

By Hol on Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 09:27 pm:

Yes, I have recycled passionately for thirty years. When we lived at Otis AFB in the early seventies, it was voluntary. I recycled glass, plastic, cans, magazines and newspapers. They had a center on base that you took it to every week.
We pay for our curbside pick-up here, as the town does not provide it. (We also pay for ambulance service, and fire tax to support our FD, in addition to our property tax). We pay $17.50 per month, but they are great. We have to buy special orange trash bags with the name of the landfill on them. We buy them in the local grocery store or Walmart. They are a roll of six for $2.50. We only use one bag per week. We compost a lot (fruit and veggie peels, watermelon rind, corn shucks, etc), we burn our junk mail in the outside fire place, and we recycle all the "hard goods, ie glass jars, cans, plastic bottles; in a blue recycling box. Our newspapers go in a green recycling box, separated in brown paper bags, into newspaper, and magazines/catalogs. Since I always ask for PAPER bags in the grocery store, I have plenty. I HATE plastic grocery bags. They are not biodegradable, and you see them hanging from trees at the side of the road. AND....you can't cover school text books with PLASTIC bags. LOL
It is more work, but I feel like I'm doing my part for future generations, as landfill space is dissappearing. I've often wondered what future civilizations will think about us when they find disposable diapers and plastic razors buried in the earth.
Karen, I'm with your DH. I wash everything, too, before I put it in recycling. I used to keep my recycling in the basement, so I sure wanted it to be clean. Now I keep it outside, but I still want it clean, so that it doesn't attract animals. A neighbor found a cat running frantically with a peanut butter jar stuck on his face! Fortunately,the guy was able to pull it off. Note** Also, I cut up the palstic six pack holders before I discard them, as wildlife has become entangled in them and died. (Also, fishing line should be cut up or wrapped, for the same reason). We live in the woods, and have a LOT of critters around us.

By Mommyathome on Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 11:01 pm:

We don't have recycling services here. I wish we did though. We just have regular curbside trash pickup each week. The nearest recycling place is about an hours drive. There is no way we can haul our trash for an hour to recycle it. We don't even have a truck.

By Jtw on Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 01:44 am:

I have always recycled. I am not a big environmentalist, but I figure if you can use it again, why not? My dad taught us about recycling, although he did it more for his own good than the environment. We seperated paper goods because we had a wood stove so he would burn that stuff to help keep the heat cost down. He also collected cans, an then turned them in to get money back. The worst chore in our house was crushing cans. We had to use this big heavy iron thing on a pole and ram it down on the cans. Believe me, after the first time it landed on your toe, you were very careful! LOL! Then one year he got a can crusher for Christmas and it was much better after that! BTW, we had seven kids in our family, which is why he was alwasy pinching the penny so much!

As for us, our city has curbside recycling, and they have made it so easy! You can recycle cans, bottles, plastic, paper, and paperboard boxes (like pop containers), and all you have to do is stick it in the container. You don't have to seperate it or anything. They pick up recycling every two weeks, and the city provides everything you need. IMO, there is no excuse for people in our city who don't recycle. It is just as easy as tossing it into the regular trash. I say if you can, you should do it!

By Karen~moderator on Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 07:41 am:

Marcia, Hol, I always rinsed stuff out before I tossed it in the bin, which is right outside the kitchen door. But my DH is anal about it, it looks brand new by the time he's finished with it!

My kids drive me nuts. They continue to throw soda cans and jars in the trash in the kitchen, which is probably 10 feet away from the recycling bin. They're too lazy to rinse them out. Sometimes I feel like a dumpster-digger, because whenever I see them in the trash can in the kitchen, you'll find me taking them out and rinsing them to be recycled.

One bonus to have an anal DH, if there's something that's just too disgusting to fool with, I know I can count on him to clean it up enough to be thrown out! LOL

By Tunnia on Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 09:01 am:

We recycle. We have weekly curbside pickup and I rinse everything out before throwing it in the bin. We don't have to separate the stuff, but we recycle everything we can so we have two bins instead of just one. We compost all of our vegetable scraps and yard trimmings and we organic garden because we don't want to add any pesticides to the ground. My parents on the other hand refuse to recycle. They said they would do it if they weren't charged for the pick-up, but they feel that if they have to go to all the trouble of rinsing the stuff and place it in a special bin and then pay to have it pick-up then they are being ripped off.

By Dawnk777 on Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 07:09 pm:

We have curbside pickup and are supposed to rinse stuff out before we put it in the garbage. I hate doing it because why should I have to wash the garbage, but I do. If you use a canned good, it doesn't take that much time to rinse it right after you empty the contents out. I still hate it, though. And does anyone realize just how much water is wasted trying to rinse out a shampoo bottle? Ugh!

By Karen~moderator on Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 07:33 pm:

Dawn, I guess I'm cheap, because I rinse mine out in the shower to get every little bit of shampoo. Ditto the laundry detergent and dish soap.

By Hol on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 01:38 am:

Karen - Me, too! I also stick the used soap sliver onto a new bar of soap, so nothing gets wasted.

By Karen~moderator on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 07:34 am:

LOL, I do that too.

By Dawnk777 on Monday, September 15, 2003 - 02:57 pm:

I never really thought of doing that. It's not like we would really get that many more shampoos out of the little bit that is left.

Hubby, cheap as he is sometimes, hates small bars of soap, so he often throws them away long before I would! LOL!

By Tonya on Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 01:48 pm:

I use to do it until I saw the garbage men throwing all of the stuff into the same truck and I said forget it. If I am going to take my time to seperate the least the city can do it pick it up right. We have to seperate our lawn stuff from garbage but otherwise I don't do anything else anymore.

By Bea on Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 05:44 pm:

I'm a recycling crazy lady. I wash and reuse plastic bags. I reuse every bag that comes into my house. Plastic bags go to the Consignment Shop for reuse. I save boxes to ship gifts, or break them down for the recycle bin. Here, we have curbside pick up. They take Plastic 1 - 2
aluminum, steel, glass...all colors, box cardboard and corrugated, newspapers, magazines and waste paper. It all goes into the same huge bin, and is collected every other week.