I'm not a SUPER DUPER green person, but I like to do my part to help the environment. I'm at least mindful of recycling what I can. I recently came across this and found a few things surprising. I had no idea that these things can not be recycled...especially receipts...I have always put then in the recycling bin. Now, with COVID, I forego getting a receipt at all, so I suppose that's a new way I can do my part. =) Do you recycle?
I do recycle but I've read/heard that actually it hasn't been a very successful program yet, with a lot of confusion about what can be recycled. And sometimes they throw out a bunch of stuff that might have been recycled but it was "contaminated" by non-recyclables. I hope it all gets figured out soon! Meanwhile I mostly just recycle the basics like paper and cardboard boxes. And I take a little time to clean out messy plastic. Pizza boxes only if they didn't get greasy. A couple days ago when I finished a box of oatmeal I ripped the plastic ring off the top so it's only cardboard and since the ring had cardboard and glue residue I threw it in the trash; hopefully that helps.
I’m a reasonably green person - I recycle all my paper, hard plastic, glass, cans and food waste etc through the city. I also recycle all my soft plastics through a service at the grocery store as well as use reuseable cloth shopping bags. For when ever I end up moving, I’ve bought reuseable cutlery set and drinking straws as well as some cloth produce bags which are packed away for now. Next on my list to buy is a kitchen food scraps bin but I’ll wait til I’m settled to buy that. On top of all this I’d say my wardrobe is made up of 75% if not more of second hand clothes and shoes that I’ve bought at secondhand stores. There’s definitely more I could be doing like taking my water filter bottle with me when I’m out rather than buying Diet Coke in a bottle
My parents started recycling when it first became available in my small town. Every resident got a red bin. At that time it was pretty much pop cans. Dad even put a can crusher on the wall of the garage. It is still there although not used anymore! Newspapers were collected in brown paper grocery bags and also put out with recycling in those days. After Mom died and Dad moved to NC, I continued with the recycling of cans. I also put cardboard and paper in the bin. After awhile I switched to bottled pop because I took my own pop to work and we couldn't have cans on our desks since they were open (a bottle was OK because of the lid). So I haven't bought pop in cans for a long time. I do recycle those bottles and have from the beginning. Within the last 10 years when I started cleaning paper out of drawers in the house, I shredded much of it because of sensitive data. Our recycling will take shredded paper, I just make sure the box is marked as shredded paper. Within the last 9 months, the city has required our recycling to be in separate bins... plastics (1 & 2)/aluminum/steel (tin) in one, cardboard/paper in another because of the new truck they got. They don't spend as much time sorting this way. So now I use a cardboard box for the cardboard/paper items and the recycling bin for any plastic items. The city also has huge bins where residents can drop their recyclables if they choose to. Glass is no longer accepted curbside but can be taken to this location. Other items can also be dropped at this location including the shopping bags that I collect from Wal-Mart and other stores. When I get a box full, I will drop them at Wal-Mart.
We recycle a lot, ie. more in the recycle bin than the trash bin. However, I have seen news reports that China has quit buying our recyclables because of all the junk in them. I have stopped recycling difficult to clean things like peanut butter jars, but still do paper, cardboard, aluminum, steel, plastics (all), and glass as long as I can get it clean. We have a large bin (same size as the large trash bin) and they pick it up every other week at the curb. Our local recycling center has offered tours in the past and that is one place I always have wanted to visit. I am curious to see how they separate out the various kinds of paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum because they don't ask us to do that. Of course, tours have been dropped now.
We are able to recycle a lot, but our city doesn't take glass. Most plastics, paper and cardboard. Unfortunately, they don't really like the shiny brochure paper which seems to be prevalent in our junk mail. One of the most difficult things about the pandemic has been that grocery stores are not allowing our reusable bags and we keep getting the plastic ones that we can't put in the recycle. (Although, my most recent orders have come in good old paper bags!) And while I continue purging, we also have monthly bulk trash pick-up and I've set out lots of things that get picked up by treasure hunters that know our collection cycle. I'm hoping that will continue picking up things I set out as I hate for them to go to the dump.
We left New Mexico to California...the garbage people brought me 3 bins, a big brown one for lawn cuttings, a blue one for recycle and this tiny gray for garbage. I cried. This tiny one was the size of my inside garbage, that went out once a day (sometimes twice). We learned the separation things, and adapted. I never filled that gray one, which was kinda cool. My kids had a business going searching for bottles and cans and made big money. lol once they found a huge amount of booze bottles, they said, some had brown water in it...it was a homeless stash! bhahhah Then we moved back to New Mexico. We don't recycle, every house has a back alley that has a huge dumpster. They come 2ce a week and take everything. We used to save cans, but mice and varmints got into bags and it isn't worth it anymore.
Well, I heard that California was a little crazy about re-cycling. (I've had friends who lived out there). We do recycle but we aren't freaks about it. I mean, really? I definitely used to be aware of the dangers to the oceans. In Florida, we had a recycle bin and a trash bin. They picked each one (individually) up on different days.
Yes, I recycle. Not because I'm so eco-virtuous (though I do try to do my part...), but because I have to: My city has a fairly complex system of blue bins (glass, metal, plastic), black bins (paper and cardboard), and green bins (leaves and lawn clippings and etc.). And all garbage/trash/refuse must now be placed in a clear plastic bag (no more sneaking recyclables into your garbage/trash, in other words...). God forbid you should get it wrong, because if you get it wrong, the sanitation guys might not pick it up (and then you come home from work, and see that your bin is still full, and o sh*t, I mixed up one of the bins, and there's not another pickup for another week ...).
We recycle the basics - plastic, aluminum cans, cardboard. We separate it out and have to take it up to our local dump along with our trash. Not sure how much help it is, but I'll keep doing it until they tell me to stop.
Yeah, having to contend with active mice and vermin would pretty much put an end to my recycling efforts!
I do sometimes but also this: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/climate/recycling-landfills-plastic-papers.html
My town has specific garbage bags that you must use. They can only be bought at certain locations and have logos on them. The large bags are white with red logo. The small bags are black with a white logo. If you put garbage out in anything other than these bags, they will not pick it up. Oh yeah, the bags aren't cheap either. You pay a monthly fee on your city utility bill and the cost of the bags. I saw one house down the street put out 5 bags one week... that was a cost of about $9 in bags alone! Not sure of the price now but at one time a package of 10 large bags was $18.00 and I think it is about a 32-gallon size of bag. But I am lucky. I live in a neighborhood that while we are serviced by the city utility department (electric, water and refuse), we are not required to use the city refuse for garbage pickup since we actually are not in city limits. And, we can still use recycling as that is a no cost item for residents. So I switched to another garbage collector that doesn't require me to buy specific bags. My cost per month was the same for the actual service and the cost of the bags went down quite a bit. I get a box of 90 bags at Sam's Club for about the same price as a package of 10 of the logo bags the city requires. But I can still put out recycling for the city to pick up.
Yes, pretty much everything is separated and recycled here. Just as,a "fun" excersise; try pretending you live on a small island,and what happens to all the different kinds of garbage not separated, just left on a dump,and taking a hundred years to break down, and some never do. Apart from ending up with mountains of rubbish, some of the ones that do break down , start contaminating your ground water,and your soil through seepage. .... fun that... Malta started separating far to late, but now everyone does it out of habit. We have collections of different kinds most days of the week.
We have a giant rolling bin for recycling and another for trash. Our recycling bin gets picked up every other week and is almost always jammed full. They used to take everything, but now have asked people not to recycle some things like pizza boxes and plastic grocery bags and styrofoam. They take almost everything else still. Our garage bins is rarely used and is usually only about 1/4 full each week. Also because I live in Michigan, we have the deposit on pop cans and bottles, so we take those back separately to get our money back for the next batch we buy.
We recycle glass, Aluminum cans, plastic containers and cardboard. Our garbage/waste mgmt service provides a separate can for those items and picks them up at the curb weekly.
No curbside glass recycling here anymore, you have to take glass to special “purple” containers. Thankfully I don’t buy much in glass and I simply toss the jars in my trash. I have two rolling carts ... garbage cart is slightly larger than the recycling cart. No need to separate plastic from cans, from paper. I don’t have much faith that my county is actually recycling stuff .. I think they just try to sell it ... but I do my part. I take my plastic grocery bags back to the grocery store for recycling, but again I'm not sure they actually get recycled.
Yes for here in Michigan like @Karen said we have two dumpsters Same size. I recycle all I can. Can & bottle returns, are you pay 10c at the grocery store when you purchase and bring back to the store and When you return you Get your 10c back. I buy mostly 2nd hand for my home. I use washable grocery bags.