“Cruise” courtesy of Foxtongue
Well, you may have noticed that “Baby Steps to Cleaner, Greener Living Week 5″ is conspicuously missing. It has a title afterall “Talking Trash”. It even has some sketchy details about how I handle recycling at home and in the office. But while I was writing I realized: I am NOT an expert here.
I have struggled and continued to struggle with properly sorting plastics, aluminum, and paper. More importantly I still get flustered by the dreaded Pizza box, and those confounding PET #’s. I have enough toilet paper roll binoculars to host a classroom safari for goodness sake. You would think I have this down pat- but no- I am challenged everyday to educate myself, my family and my employees about recycling. There’s a lot of great tips floating around the web, but they’re bits and pieces, and often give conflicting info/advice.
Ask me about recycling electronics and I can break it down for you down to the RF chips (if you have about three hours to kill 
) But when it comes to everyday recycling, I’m embarrassed to admit I am often befuddled.
So I’m turning to you GreenBeans, to your wisdom and experience, your trials and errors. Do you have a fool-proof system for the home or office? A tip to simplify the sorting? Information about what to do with the more questionable items? How does your town handle recycling? How can we get our town involved?
Post them here or on Facebook. Tweet ‘em if you like. Got pics? Even better. Be sure to include a link to your site, and if you have an article that would help, include that too.
The deadline is Friday, June 3, 2011. Then, your ideas and links will be compiled in what could quite possibly be the very best recycling resource evahhhh!!!
Okay now I’m excited! Are you excited? Woohoo!
About 4 years ago I realized I’d been recycling the same reusable produce bags for about 15 years. A girl friend of mine had originally made these bags but eventually stopped due to the demands of family life.
So I asked her if I could restart the company. Since then I have got Carebags & Got it! Reusables listed in over 300 store locations.
I’m a strong proponent of reusables that last for life and local production.
These days I hear lots of talk about how we should live below our means, address our needs and be careful with our wants. I like this theory, it leaves room for creativity, relationship, and community.
Thats my 2 cents.
Reuse things as long as possible. It gives them history and you share a journey together.
Diana
I wrote about our home recycling system in a blog post on my site: http://thelivinggreensolution.com/making-it-easy-… After becoming a certified Master Recycler I learned SO much about ways to reduce, reuse (and then) recycle we were able to cut our waste in half.
Oh yes, this is going to be EPIC!! Thank you all so much for taking the time to share your ideas, so helpful and simple!!!
Ecogrrl, thank you for sharing your wisdom and experience here, it is scary to think that plastic really has no endgame.
Alaina, you are right about taking steps to avoid the waste in the first place, and keeping with Jess and Beth's ideas about scaling back, you girls highlight the first line of defense: Reduce!
Mrs Green, I love your sorting station, and you along with Tiffany and Cinella are right on about keeping it simple and organized!
Added to the stellar contributions from you Lori (especially loving your piece on batteries) and composting queen Helga (yes I remember her trudging through many feet of snow to get to her bin!!) along with all the #CTWW love and we have a recipe for greatness brewing here!!!
Rock on!!!
#CTWW sent me too. I have consolidated my recycling tips and info into this post: http://thegreeningofwestford.blogspot.com/2011/05…
Morning lovely one; so happy to be here courtesy of #CTWW! I have written something for you which I hope can help. It outlines questions to ask yourself before you shop and my five point plan for setting up a recycling system which works. My family and I accumulated just one carrier bag of landfill waste for 2010l, so this is an area of passion for me
Check out the post here: http://littlegreenblog.com/green-technology/waste… and best of luck with your recycling mission!
Here's a terrific article written by Cinella of The Mami Blog (not sure if she'll get over here to post it): http://cjrthemamiblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/ctww-b…
I try to keep in mind that recycling comes after reusing and reducing and shop carefully to avoid ending up with a lot of packaging. I'm learning to make my own pizza (no boxes!) and cook most of my food from scratch. One thing that I'd like to be better about is bringing my own takeout boxes when I go out to eat. The actual recycling part is pretty simple — our city just has one big collection bin for recyclables, and then we make occasional special trips to get rid of batteries, spent light bulbs, and e-waste.
Your request has been posted as this week's challenge.
Here's the direct link: http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com/2011/05/chan…
If any of your readers want to stop by & leave idea … we'd love it! Hopefully, we'll all learn a lot! Thanks, again, for starting this collection of information!
SOOOOOO happy to be a part of this! I too get a bit confused about what goes where, but I recycle with little helpers!! My littler helpers (7 year olds) totally keep me in shape! "NO MOM, that has to be recycled!" So whether it's glass, plastic, paper or plastic they totally keep me in line. We have one designated spot for all recyclables and now that they are older, they take the items out to their respective bins. WHAT I HATE seeing is things being put out for recycling, in a plastic bag! UGH! The boys have their reusable bags, stick the jars, papers, plastic etc. inside, and empty their bags out in the right bin! That's the way to go!
So, I think you just need some little helpers to help you out!
back in 1991 when i was a senior in high school, i did my speech class final on 'why we all must recycle' – so as you can guess, i'm all about the R/R/R motto. each year i add a little more, continually pushing myself. i get trash service only once a month and still fill it up only halfway, everything else is either recycled, composted, or not created into waste in the first place. this year i geeked it up and became a certified master recycler in portland, learning more about the entire process, down & up stream, resource conservation, getting out into the community and EDUCATING others! biggest findings? 1) compostable plastic should be banned – it cannot be recycled, it cannot go into backyard compost piles, and even in industrial compost, adds no benefit to the soil (only actual organic materials can do that). 2) recycling plastic only does so much as it is downcycled – basically, recycling a plastic bag or container does NOT turn it into another plastic bag or container – instead, it only has a few options, like composite decking (which can never be recycled and is toxic if burned). 3) sharing our knowledge and resources lifts us all up -we forget that everyone is in a different place and with different knowledge, and getting accurate information out there and sharing ideas? priceless.
Woohoo!!! Great stuff here guys!! Thank you so much! Already outlining…keep 'em coming beans!!!
Hey Petunia-I love it-a resource filled with all sorts of recycling suggestions. Thanks for putting this together. I always try to find a good home for things we have outgrown or don't use anymore. Freecycle and Craigslist are great resources for repurposing.
Here are a few posts from Groovy Green Livin that cover different aspects of recycling.
http://groovygreenlivin.com/2010/12/green-battery… http://groovygreenlivin.com/2010/11/happy-america… http://groovygreenlivin.com/2010/10/plastics-101-… http://groovygreenlivin.com/2010/09/9-simple-step…
I don't buy anything unless definitely recyclable…I try not to buy any plastic at all…I do buy lots of glass and I use the bulk bins with re-used containers…the checkers really think I'm a pain!
Still have no camera to call my own but I'll try to take some pics with my phone of the bin at our complex so you can see how most people DON'T know what they are doing…sad but true!
I've been at it for 2 years and I still get confused! I think my best tip is composting, the ultimate recycling! For all the fresh fruits & veggies we consume, we only create about a bag a week of waste. That's not so bad.
Hi Petunia. Like I said on Twitter, I try not to have to recycle by avoiding as much disposable packaging as I can in the first place. But I have written a bunch of posts about things most people don't know about recycling. Here they are:
http://myplasticfreelife.com/2007/09/wait-are-you…
http://myplasticfreelife.com/2007/10/recycling-pa…
http://myplasticfreelife.com/2007/10/recycling-pa…
This one has a very sad video about what happens to a lot of our plastic "recycling" in china:
http://myplasticfreelife.com/2008/01/week-29-resu…
http://myplasticfreelife.com/2009/12/is-recycling…
http://myplasticfreelife.com/2010/11/the-truth-ab…
Sorry for so many posts. As you can see, I've got a lot to say about recycling and whether it's the answer to our waste problems or not!
Well … this sounds like a "call to action" to me … and, perhaps, would make a great Change The World Wednesday challenge. Hm … I think I'll do that. So be prepared … and hopefully you'll get a ton of ideas!
Okay … here are a few tips & ideas from me. First let me offer this post (http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com/2009/08/recycling-composting-three-lessons.html) … it talks about the things I learned when I started recycling and composting. Toilet paper rolls make excellent compost … worms really love them. So, rather than recycle them, try composting them … just rip them up into small pieces and toss them into your compost bin. Try to find uses for things before recycling them. We have self-service type recycling centers which basically means that we take our recyclables to them and toss items into the appropriate bins. We've experimented with sorting at home but, frankly, we just don't have enough room. So we basically have two bins … one container for paper and one for everything else. Our recycling center is on the way to everything so, whenever we leave the house, we bring a box and take care of it. Sorting the contents of one or two boxes is an easy task. I will say that we are lucky … our city basically takes all plastics, metals, etc. so we don't have to read the numbers as much as other areas. Hope some of that helps. And hopefully the #CTWW Gang will be by Wednesday to add to the list.
Wow! I am honored! Thank you so much for spreading the word! So proud to be a part of #CTWW!