STORM2K

Just curious, how many here recycle? Me....I wish I COULD, with us being in the BOONIES so to speak we have limited resources, the only recycling available are aluminum cans and green waste, ie, pine needles, tree limbs etc...that's IT D

Dennis

Yes I do! We recycle all paper, glass, plastic and alum. (sp?). We receive one recycling bin with our 2 can tier a week a plan. I fill that bin 4 or 5 times over. Someone told me to ask for paper bags at the grocery and fill them up. Recycling truck takes them each week, no questions asked. We go thru tons of junk mails, school papers, magazines, newspapers, old phone books, etc. Not to mention shampoo/ketchup/mayo/salad dressing bottles, etc. I'm just in the habit now of rinsing out all of those bottles and every single can I open.

When we go on vacation, it kills to not recyle for a week.

We live in a throwaway society now. Best example are all the cleaning wipes - swiffer, pledge, windex, bath cleaner. Somewhere along the line all of this will end up in landfills. For our kids' generation to deal with.

Can you tell my daughter's Nina's old 5th Grade Science teacher made a HUGE impact on us? LOL Yes, he's the one that opened our eyes to the garbage problem in this country.

Mary

Yeah! What's with all the freaking wipes now? Wipes for windows, wipes for dusting, wipes for the floor, wipes with bleach, wipes for the car interior, wipes for the tires, wipes for hands on trips, and wipes for...well...wiping.

And tapes? I've wondered what's with all the "tape strip thingies." You got breath tape that goes on your tongue. You got zit tape that goes on your nose. You got nair hair tape that goes on your legs. You got teeth whitening tape. And I heard some ad the other day for some strip that contains medicine for something I won't mention here so as to spare the guys.

We're so darned convenience oriented and we still don't have enough hours in the day!

And yes, I recycle to an extent -- plastic grocery bags. I don't like to drink out of aluminum cans much but those I do go into a bin at work. I read the news online. I don't dump the oil from my car after an oil change (who am I kidding? I pay to have that done. ).

Lexington has a really cool program with a special blue garbage can on wheels with four tall columnar plastic bins that fit down inside it - for cans, glass, plastic jugs and bottles, and *scratching head* I can't remember the fourth thing. And then there was a wide shallow plastic tray that fit over those four, but still within the bin, that was for newspapers and paper sacks. It was called the Rosie Program. I used it in KY because it was easy and convenient. They came to you to pick up everything as long as it was out front. No need to haul stuff anywhere.

We recycle aluminum cans here. The local Sheltered Workshop takes them so we drop them off there. We also recycle plastic bags by using them as sacks to take "sack lunches in" rather than buying brown bags.

Our recycling abilities are limited here, too. Hopefully, as our city continues to grow, new recycling opportunities will exist as well.

Wisconsin has a top-notch recycling program. Perhaps Shannon/pojo will post on this topic. We vacationed there last summer and I was very impressed. Nearby every public garbage can were two more bins - alum and paper. In our rental unit (condo) we had instructions for recycling - this bag for this product, that bag for such and such. I wish Ohio had such a thorough recycling program. I've always said we need several bins a week - for paper/alum/plastic and if used properly, the garbage cans wouldn't be filled to the brim. You just have to get in the habit of breaking down all boxes - from toothpaste to mac and cheese to cereal. At one time, area Thriftway grocery stores (now out of business) had plastic garbage bags recycle bins - you could even drop off plastic wrappers, such as you would find on paper towels, etc. Once you start, you look at almost every product to see if it's 100% recyclable. It's not hard to do, you just have to change your ways. And state to state I've discovered it greatly varies.

Mary

We recycle our milk jugs, juice bottles, newspapers, cardboard boxes, etc. Miss Mary, I was able to get an extra bin for recycling from city hall. You could try calling your recycling or garbage service and I bet you get another bin or two yourself.
...Jennifer...

Jen - it's more per month on your bill if you ask for another bin! Once I figured out they'd take paper bags filled with recyclibles, this system has worked fine. I just place them on my driveway next to the bin. I wedge them in so the wind doesn't blow them around (learned the hard way with that one once!). Thanks for the suggestion. Sometimes my husband wants to cancel the bin and take it all to recycling centers, but it would entail several trips. I must admit it is convenient to have it all picked up at home. If we recyle thoroughly (sometimes we do get lazy and pitch items), I can get by on one garbage can a week. That's amazing to ponder about.

Mary

has recycling for newspapers, magazines, aluminum cans, tin cans, and certain plastics. I also save my plastic shopping bags and drop them off at either Safeway or Wal-Mart in their recycling bin. I do the newspapers and magazines and occasionally plastic jars when I have them. I usually don't have much in the way of cans with what I eat and I can my own fruit (which is organically grown BTW) so the glass jars are usually reuseable after they are cleaned. My yard waste I mulch as I do the leaves off the trees-haven't had to fertilize the lawn with chemicals or manure for years. Sierra Vista turns all yard waste it gets into compost which it then turns around and sells.

Steve

I'm not exactly Fred Sanford, but I do my part.

Our township has a recycling center with roll-off containers for steel cans, aluminum cans, clear glass, brown glass, green glass, plastic bottles and jars, newspaper, and cardboard. Yard waste can go to a composting area. At this location we are also allowed to use burner barrels for paper. I use plastic grocery bags for paper and burn them with it.

Some table scraps go to the dogs. (I make sure they get their veggies), and I eat leftovers.

I also save some wood scraps, and salvage good pieces of wood when I take something apart. Some pieces of wood have probably appeared in 3 or 4 projects now.

I keep a box of metal items and periodically take it to a bin at the county transfer station. They take metals at no charge for recycling.

I came across some copper pipe and was able to get a few bucks for it at a commercial recycling operation.

I built composting bins for our autumn leaves and yard waste. I fill them up each autumn and by the next summer, the level drops down enough to do it all over again.

Between all of the above, our trash has been about half of what it would have been otherwise.

Since we're moving, we'll have to adapt to a few new procedures.

There are a lot of slobs who abuse the recycling. They put all kinds of inappropriate items in the containers or don't bother to sort their items. That is soooo lazy and careless. It has to be hand sorted which costs the taxpayers money.

Aluminum cans are a money maker for the municipalities. That helps cover some of the costs of the recycling program.

In the state of New York, theres a refundable deposit for aluminum cans. I've heard of people raiding the recycling bins and taking truckloads of them to New York.

By the way, Pennsylvania is the largest net importer of Trash. Many surface mines have been converted to landfills. We get trash from New York City and New Jersey. While the revenue comes into state, it's a big controversy here.

In a previous job, I did work at a trash to steam plant. It generated electricity and sold it to the utility company. A good idea.

Boy, I can talk trash, eh?

There's been numerous attempts by outsiders that have moved here from Calif, Phoenix, Tucson etc., to start a recycling program..at first, they're ALL fired up, spend 1000's of $$ on property, set up costs etc. only to find out it's VERY cost prohibitive having to truck everything to Phoenix, a total of 180 miles to my southwest.

Dennis

GalvestonDuck wrote:Yeah! What's with all the freaking wipes now? Wipes for windows, wipes for dusting, wipes for the floor, wipes with bleach, wipes for the car interior, wipes for the tires, wipes for hands on trips, and wipes for...well...wiping.

And tapes? I've wondered what's with all the "tape strip thingies." You got breath tape that goes on your tongue. You got zit tape that goes on your nose. You got nair hair tape that goes on your legs. You got teeth whitening tape. And I heard some ad the other day for some strip that contains medicine for something I won't mention here so as to spare the guys.

HALLELUJIAH DUCK! CAN I GET AN AMEN ON THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!

(yeah, i'm sure guys are just going to line right up to stick TAPE on their thingies... OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!)

No I don't. Call me bad but I have a hard enough time keeping the damn dogs out of my trash without collecting more of it for them to get into

j wrote:No I don't. Call me bad but I have a hard enough time keeping the damn dogs out of my trash without collecting more of it for them to get into

We recycle newspaper, cardboard boxes and plastic containers.

we recycle everything. paper, milk jugs, plastic, glass, you name it. Menasha has a recycling program that picks up once a month. UWGB has recycling bins everywhere around the campus. I'm dead serious. Wisconsin recycles everything!

I wish that were the case here. Lawrence County,
TN was VERY good to recycle, for a while, then
it got into the "costs" for recycle, and, such, and,
it seems that everyone was just happy to send
everything to the landfill....so, I can now save #2
plastic, all I want, but, it's going in the garbage -
pronto! Tennessee loves the Earth, eh? Jeez....

I am still trying to find a way to recycle coppertop's SOCKS...no one seems to want them.