Welcome to the January 2013 Natural Living Blog Carnival: Green Confessions.
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Natural Living Blog Carnival hosted by Happy Mothering and The Pistachio Project through the Green Moms Network. This month our members have written posts about areas of their life where they aren't as "green" as they may want to be.
Ok, it is confession time so here it is: We don’t recycle.
Gasp! I know, sounds pretty appalling considering we lead a very natural, green lifestyle otherwise. I used to recycle, but we stopped a few years ago
and I will tell you why.
I wrote a few months ago about the challenges of living naturally in the rural west but one of the things I didn’t mention was the fact
that we don’t have curbside recycling. While that can make recycling very
convenient, not having it did not prevent us from recycling for a number of
years out here. Instead we had to have a dedicated spot in the house or shed
for a "recycling center”. Then about once every few months I loaded it all up
in my little old truck and headed to town to unload at the recycling center. No
big deal.
Then we slowly began making life changes such as starting to
buy organic milk that only comes in wax cartons instead of plastic milk jugs. Milk
jugs used to be one of the main things we recycled but not anymore since we
cannot recycle the wax cartons.
We rarely use store bought canned goods anymore so don’t
have tin to recycle. Instead, I buy a lot of our food like beans in the dry bulk
bins rather than buying them canned. I also am making the majority of our foods
from scratch so we no longer have a need for store bought canned goods.
We used to subscribe to the local newspaper and had stacks
we took to the recycling center. A few
years ago we stopped subscribing and now just read the local paper online so no
more stacks of newspaper.
Now when it comes to aluminum, that is where I will confess
I am feeling a bit guilty. We used to recycle all of our aluminum although we
didn’t have a lot since we don’t drink soda and we prefer
microbrews in a glass bottle. As we stopped having many other products to
recycle, I tried to continue storing aluminum cans to take to the recycling
center. The problem was that we accumulated them so slowly and didn’t have a
good spot to store them. Unfortunately the bags of cans were thrown under the
deck when we were building a garage a few years ago and successfully created a
major pest problem for us with ants, yellow jackets and mice that we’re still
battling.
So now we don’t recycle anything. We can’t recycle glass
where we live so unfortunately the glass beer bottles have to be thrown away.
We reuse and repurpose a lot of items, but I will admit that if a beverage in an aluminum can is consumed in our house it is thrown into the trash can. Being
a longtime advocate of living a sustainable eco-friendly lifestyle, I always
feel guilty if I see an aluminum can in the trash can.
What can I do about it? I decided that in the new year I am
going to figure out how we can recycle the small amount of aluminum we have
without attracting pests and rodents. Here are a few ideas I have on how to
make this work:
- Create an easily accessible but unobtrusive recycling bin in the garage
- Rinse out the can before it is placed into the recycling bin
- Commit to taking the cans to the recycling center once a month so they don’t become a smelly nuisance
Do you have any tips to share? How do you make recycling
work for you?
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Visit Happy Mothering and The Pistachio Project to learn more about participating in next month’s Natural Living Blog Carnival!
Please take some time to enjoy the posts our other carnival participants have contributed:
This post shared on: Simple Lives Thursday
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This was my post too, that we aren't recycling. Now we do have a place to take it, but still think those who have curbside recycling have it made! Could you store the aluminium in a metal trash can, lined with a trash bag and just keep it separate like you said in a shed? I am checking into some actual recycling bins to use as my cardboard box gets wet.
ReplyDeleteSame problem here! Storing recyclables in a tidy way is hard, and I'd appreciate any tips.
ReplyDeleteWe love our curbside recycling, especially now that it is single stream and takes juice boxes and other tetrapaks like our organic milk containers. Our tip is to get kids involved as early as possible thinking about recycling. Our older son (now 8) made an awesome X-Wing fighter out of a cardboard egg carton and other various repurposed stuff. We even have our preschooler, now 3, active in recycling in our house. http://www.greenlifestylechanges.com/quick-tip-teaching-your-toddler-to-recycle/
ReplyDeleteWe live in a very rural area as well so there is no curbside recycling or garbage pick-up for that matter. We are fortunate enough that Hubby takes it work once of twice a week as we have a few things as they have a large recycling bin and dumpster so it makes it easy. I find by rinsing out containers I can store them in a bin under my sink until he takes them in.
ReplyDeleteEven though we are rural we just switch waste management companies and the new one offers recycling. I was so excited!!!! Plus it's a local owned company and not one of those huge conglomerates :) Plus they offer twice a month or once a month pick up for those with less waste. We chose the twice a month but will be switching to the once a month very soon.
ReplyDeleteI didn't expect this one! lol. We have a crazy-awesome recycling program on campus, or I doubt I would either. Our local recycling options are non-existent!
ReplyDeleteLuckily, we have curbside pickup. Best of luck with getting a new system going
ReplyDeleteWe have curbside recycling, plus our township accepts lots of stuff. I do need to get better about not buying some stuff and doing the bulk buys like you do.
ReplyDeleteI need help in this area as well. Thanks for sharing your tips!
ReplyDeleteYour confession is similar to what mine would be.. I live in a rural community (in North Dakota, neighbor!) where there is no recycling program. I do separate the recycling garbage to haul it into town but I *have* unfortunately thrown away some stuff when there is too much going on to haul it in. We live in an apartment without much space so it happens..
ReplyDeleteAnnie! I'm so sad I missed out on this linky! We too had the problem with pests and now we just have it in the back of our minds if we head to 'town' to throw the recycle in (no matter what level of accumulation) so that it's done at least once each month. Great post! ~ Amanda
ReplyDeleteWe run into this problem as well - no curbside! Fortunately, our recycling center is on the way to the grocery store, so whenever I buy groceries, I can take my recyclables - but with two little ones they still tend not to get taken every week, and sometimes pile up...sometimes I get a little lazy sorting them...oh, the shame!
ReplyDeleteI don't think I could do without our curbside recycling. It makes my life so much easier. They don't take glass, but we do have a separate container for that and we take it in every few months or so.
ReplyDeleteWe had no curbside recycling for years and we just had big plastic bins that we would put stuff in... one for glass, one for plastic, one for mixed paper and one for cardboard. There was a recycling place 45 minutes from home, so once a month or so we would take it all there. We just move (ironically further out into the country) and we now have curbside for some of it. We still have to take in the mixed paper and glass, but that's better than having to take it all. I don't know that I have any good advice... it totally depends on the amount of space you have to store the stuff. We keep our bins against the wall in the laundry room.
ReplyDeleteWe dont and never have had curbside. Im not even sure what it means. lol. I have a little area in the garage where I put everything and then hall it when needed. Im pretty good ay recycling mostly everything. I have thrown out the odd paper or something. We get money back here for all glass and bottle so Id for sure never throw them in the trash.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine recycling without curbside pickup! I used to not recycle when we lived in an apartment. But now we live in a super green city and we actually get fined if we don't recycle (talk about incentive) we also now compost (because we have curbside compost pickup) because that helps cut down on my trash output (which is good for us as our trash pickup can is only 13 gallons! This city is really into recycling and compost which is good but it's taken a long time to get used to)
ReplyDeleteAre you in Portland Brittany? This sounds like Portland - home of the country's first curbside recycling program. :)
DeleteMy dad saves up all his aluminum cans separate from his recycling container. When he accumulates enough to fill his truck, he makes a special trip to a recycling center that buys them by weight!
ReplyDeleteI love how honest you are! I remember before we started we had to pay a crazy amount for it, so I saved it all up and took it to town and dropped it but curbside is way easier!
ReplyDeleteI understand! We don't have curbside pickup anymore either!
ReplyDeleteOne of the very very few things I like about where I currently live is that we do have curbside recycling. Unfortunately we live in a low income neighborhood so we have people doing all kinds of things they wouldn't do in a nicer neighborhood. Putting anything recyclable for cash in our curbside containers attracts people who go through our garbage in the wee hours of the morning. They noisily come through with their rattling shopping carts and sort through our cans to pull out anything they can trade for cash. So to stop attracting them we had to start storing our few aluminum cans and glass & plastic bottles in our garage...which attracts other pests. Roaches, beetles and black widows. (sigh) Now we also have the problem of storing up a few cans and bottles for months until it's worth it to make the trip to the recycling place. Thankfully it's not too far.
ReplyDeleteI also rinse out bottles and cans as I can but I can't always keep up with the rest of the family so they toss theirs out there dirty- that is if they don't toss it in the garbage. When I do find them I fish them out and rinse them first.
My last pregnancy left me extremely exhausted so this was a big hassle for me to chase after everyone and get it all recycled. Then of course was the c-section so I'm still in a bit of recovery mode from that.
Good luck to you. I hope we can both find a better storage solution.
I hated it when we first moved here and din't have curbside recycling. It was a shock to me. I am so glad we have it again. It always amazes me how our next door neighbors, who have the same trash company and therefore can have free curbside recycling, choose not to recycle.
ReplyDeleteAluminum cans are actually the only thing we do recycle. We can get curbside recycling but it costs extra and quite frankly we don't have any wiggle room in our budget. We can take it to Whole Foods but we just haven't gotten the logistics together. We do buy quite a bit in bulk and aim for minimal packaging so that helps but we do need to do a better job. For your aluminum I would get a trash can with an excellent lid and line it with a big garbage bag. Get a can smasher and mount it near the can. Smash them and then toss them in there until it's full. The tight lid should keep away the pests and my smashing them you can get more in your one can so you can make fewer trips.
ReplyDeleteYou have downscaled so much, you should be proud of yourself! Of course, we all have things that should be done better and I love looking for ways out, just like you do.It's funny but I've never thought about not recycling glass bottles for example. In fact, in Norway, there is a station in every grocery store where we are supposed to return our bottles (plastic and glass) and cans and get a krona or two back. As tough as it is for you to find the best way to recycle cans, I am sure you will find a way. And indeed, washing the cans before is essential!
ReplyDelete