At my old house I had a recycling system. It was in a little closet and consisted of separate paper bags for each type of recyclable. The only problem with this is that I would get too busy (read, lazy) to take the bags to the recycling center until they were threatening to explode from the closet. When I moved in here the SO said that I couldn’t do it because in this old house we’d be begging for bugs.
But I was starting to twitch when I threw away something that could be recycled. I called the garbage company and asked what options they provided. It turns out that curbside recycling is mandated here. Funny, I’ve never seen any curbside recycling containers around. They asked if I had the blue container. I said no so they said that they’d send it out.
It came this morning. I’ve never been so excited to get a dirty blue plastic bin. I proudly threw some well rinsed cans into it and contemplated the fact that I am such a geek.
My city (allegedly) separates recyclables after pick up, so no separate containers for us, just trash and yard waste. I hate it. Partially because I feel like I am being prevented from recycling everything I can, and mostly because I know it is unlikely that the city recycles more than 50% of what they could (if they do less they get penalized, but there is no incentive for doing more, so most cities with similar programs stick to the minimum).
Anyway, B and I got our own trash cans for plastic, aluminum, and green, brown, and clear glass that we take to the recycling center ourselves. B drew the line at a separate trash can for every class of plastic. Geeks unite!
I love where I live – we have huge blue trash cans for recycling, green ones for yard waste recycling, and regular-sized ones for trash. You get charged for putting out extra trash but extra recycling is free. Every week the street is lined with bright green and blue containers. 🙂 We’re now focusing on reducing and usually we keep it down to only putting out the trash once a month. There is a service option for once-a-month trash, so I’m hoping if we can keep it up that we can switch to that service.
When my husband and I first got together, he never recycled at all. When I found out we had curbside recycling where we live, I became a recycling fiend. When we first moved there 6 years ago, we had a full can of trash at pickup every two weeks and about half a bin of recycling.
6 years later, we’re lucky if the can is half full, and most of that is cat litter. But all of our recycling bins are overflowing every week. My husband, the non recycler, now points out gleefully on trash days just how much trash we don’t have *laughs*.