Recycling Freely

[Missy Willis]

I try to maintain a healthy home and lifestyle. I assume most of the readers of this site do too. One activity that has brought me lots of unexpected joy? Recycling (I know, I thrill easily). Each week I’m on a low trash quest, feeling quite beside myself when our recycling bin is fuller than our trash bin. Recent changes to our county recycling program has given us a 96 gallon bin and allowed for the addition of number 5 and 7 plastics, juice boxes, and aerosol cans. Woohoo!! All those yogurt containers I held onto for so long have finally moved from the to-be-used someday-craft-pile to the recycling pile. Can I tell you that de-cluttering makes me even more joyful?

Enter: Craigslist (www.craigslist.com) and Freecycle (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Freecycle-Charlotte). Both are national sites and great places to post items (clothes, furniture, appliances, gardening tools, etc.) you no longer need or want. On Craigslist, you can either sell items, earning a little extra money, or you can post items in the free section. On Freecycle everything you offer must be free as the name implies. And don’t discount things that are broken or in pieces. I have unloaded quite a few things I thought were destined for the landfill to handy men (and women). In your post be sure to specify that the item is in need of repair so people know what they are agreeing to. One man’s trash truly can be another’s treasure!

As for that 96 gallon recycling bin I now get to load up, below are items we can recycle and a few items you may not think about recycling. (For specifics in your area, check your county’s solid waste information).

• Aerosol cans NEW!
• Aluminum
• Cardboard
• Glass
• Juice boxes NEW!
• Milk and juice cartons NEW!
• Paper (including toilet paper rolls, craft paper, tissue paper, wrapping paper, all the inserts in packaging, old art work that no longer decorates your refrigerator!)
• Plastics 1-5 & 7 NEW!
• Spiral paper cans
• Steel/tin cans

Recycling is truly one of the easiest ways to reduce waste and our impact on the environment. For more information on recycling and recycling centers in your area check out www.earth911.org.

Missy Willis is living and learning alongside her 2 kids and husband as a SAHM and owner of Terra Tees. She is also hard at work setting up a blog about living with kids, http://letemgobarefoot.wordpress.com, documenting her thoughts about the wild, wacky, and wonderful world of Mommydom.

[Sarah Cortes]

Hi Missy, always nice too hear of someone who gets excited by seeing how much theyve kept out of the landfill and sees that re-using is better than recycling . I too am a Freecycler (in Wi) since 2005.
I thought I'd share the way our 2 person household has not bought/used a trashbag in about 8 years. We use a catlitter bucket (about 3 1/2 - 4 gal) for a trashcan. It came with a fliptop lid that pushes to snap closed. This and also keeping it in the cabinet under the sink keeps our dog out of it. It fits perfect under the sink ! The plastic grocery shopping bags fit perfectly inside the bucket and the snap on lid helps hold it up too. In our house where we recycle lots, buy bulk foods in refillable jars and compost kitchen scraps, it takes 4 days to a week to fill this. It would take possibly a month to fill a standard kitchen trashcan! Even the little one gets stinky sometimes in the summer, then I dont have to feel bad like I wasted 90% of a large trashbag because it needs to be taken out. With a family of more than our 2 people you might need the bigger can.
We also save all our bags that are not the right size for the kitchen, newspaper bags w/out holes, breadbags, other shopping bags and we use them for dogpoop bags for walks. Shopping bags with small/med holes get used in the bathroom trash where it's mostly paper and nothing gets thrown away that might leak.
Keep up the good work ! Nice to read of your simple joy !
...Sarah