For the love of organizing, RECYCLE
Okay so I admit that the love of organizing is not the first reason most people think of when deciding to recycle. I’m well aware that there are many more practical and good earthly reasons to recycle things like cans and paper and cardboard and drink containers. Yet even with all those good reasons being told to me over and over again by some very well intentioned friends, I must say that I was a hard sell. {continue reading over at The Juice}
Recycling is such an important thing to do! I’m so glad to see that you have ventured into the world of recycling! I started about 2 years ago, and it’s amazing how much easier it gets. Where I live, we have “single stream” recycling, which means we don’t have to separate anything! It’s so wonderful. And easy! I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t do it. Ultimately, you should be able to recycle more than you throw away. Our recycling is double our trash. If you diligently try recycling, you learn very fast, and you will see what great results you can get! Excellent post!
My BFF lets me guest post on her blog and I wrote how you inspired me to get more organized last year and how I have kept it up. I hope you have time to stop by. I love your blog. Blessings!
http://goodintentionsqueen.blogspot.com/2009/07/bff-best-friend-friday-organizing-with.html
Oh Laura…how very kind of you to link my Creating Sanctuary post to your very wonderful post on organizing!
You’re a LOVE. Check out my new blog :-) It’s La Maison et le Jardin…French for home and garden.
blessings..lylah
Laura, I’ve got a question. I rose to the challenge of decluttering and purging under my bathroom counter. Now I’ve got umpteen bottles of old, unused hair product that have seen numerous styles–from sprays to mousses to gels. How do I dispose of those “greenly”?
Thanks so much!
Jenni
I LOVE RECYCLING….I cring when i see something thrown away that could be recycled!!! I just got my mom started on it and she saves SOOOOOO much on her trash now!!!! :)
We don’t have the undercupboard bins nor is my garage attached. We had a dilemma because taking it downstairs everytime to a laundry room that was at the back of the house was really impractical. I just bought a covered tote box that matched the color of the house so that it didn’t stick out like a sore thumb and put it on the back deck right outside the back door. No sorting. We just pile it in. When it’s full, it’s the kids job to take it to the recycling center and sort it there. It’s what worked for us for now. In my perfect world we would have recycling pickup once a week like the big city does.
My husband and I quickly noticed that how much trash we were taking out everyday. Mostly diapers and wipes. Pretty much a bag of trash a day. This started when we had our first little girl. Since number two is on the way, we really don’t want to see what the trash situation will be. So, we are starting to recycle. It’s been a bit hard. Especially, on my part. The important thing is that we are trying.
Our county has started a recycling program and we have seen our trash cut in half. We have always composted our kitchen garbage, but recycling, honestly, was so difficult (getting the recyclables to a place to be recycled was crazy!). I am very glad that we’ve taken a small step in the right direction.
We have two bins in our kitchen for recycling. One is for metal/glass/etc. The other is for paper, cardboard, newspaper. Both have covers so that our little one can’t get into it. On average we have 2 bags of trash per week and a lot of recycling.
We’ve been recycling for years, as well as composting and it has reduced our garbage production to less than 1 bag a week for our household of 3. Most of the garbage is cat litter and meat wrappers. Our city doesn’t have free recycling pick up – we have to pay for it but it’s well worth it. When we remodeled our kitchen, we installed under counter garbage cans – 1 for garbage and 1 for recycles which works out really well. The compost bucket sits on the counter and gets emptied daily.
Good job getting going – it can make such a difference in the world – you just have to take those extra few moments and it makes all the difference. The biggest plus for me was being able to ‘walk the walk’ for our daughter, not just ‘talk the talk’.
We are very lucky that our city provides curbside service and the large, rolling bins to separate everything into. We keep a bin under the sink, put everything into it and the night befre garbage day ds14 takes it out and separates everything into it’s roper place. Even around our city…the downtown area and on all school campuses…their are recycling cans to use.
We have curbside recycling every other week. We have a big blue bin that we put all paper, boxes, plastic, tin/aluminum in. A red bin gets all the glass and oil containers (car). I just have a paper grocery sack in the kitchen by microwave that’s filled with recyclables and when it fills up it gets dumped into the blue bin. Another paper sack, further back of the microwave, holds newspapers. We have maybe 2 garbage bags a week that goes out. We also have a green yard debris bin that can go out every week with the garbage pickup. It’s nice to have. Since I live in Oregon, we recycle pop bottles and cans and now water bottles. It’s annoying some times but I do it in the name of keeping our state and earth more beautiful. I remember years ago the roadsides were so awful but now people clean them up. Interstates are done usually by some prison inmate team. Other roads are done by businesses and groups. That’s awesome!!!
We are lucky to have curbside recycling in our town. The only problem is the tiny bin they provide, so we purchased several rubbermaid bins (from Goodwill of course!)to supplement it.
When I pay really close attention to what I am doing, I generally fill up less than a third of my trash can.
My next project is learning to compost to reduce that amount even further.
Hi all!
New to MPM! I’ve been telling I was going to join for weeks but now is a reality! :)
Have a Wonderful Day Everyone! :)
In addition to the environmental benefits, I also console myself with the fact that I use fewer trash bags since we recycle. We don’t pay for curbside recycling, and I’m pondering some bins or another receptacle to store recyclables between runs to the collection sites.
Hi Laura. Really, I didn’t drop off the face of the earth!
I love that it’s becoming easier and easier TO recycle. We don’t have a very good program where we live now compared to where we used to live and if there is one thing I would love to see is a better way to improve that process. Great article by the way! I hope you are having a good summer! :)
It’s just a natural part of my life, veggie cans, coke cans, plastic bottles and glass are all simply rinsed out after using and put in the drain rack to dry, then gathered and dumped in a small plastic garbage can (dollar store buy) with our towns blue plastic recycling bag in place. Every Wednesday if it’s full it goes out like the trash does. Easy Peasy, but then we’ve been doing it for about 15 years. Oh by the way, our recycling bin sits in my laundry room beside my dryer. It’s a tiny room but it fits and it’s right off the kitchen so it’s convenient.
Now take the next step and buy grocery bags and you will cut down on tons of plastic grocery bags filling our landfills, and your groceries don’t all squish together.