NSBR: How do you recycle?

[zakirahzakaria]

So...I've been trying to lessen my carbon footprint and increase my recycling effort. So far, my family & I have actively recycled paper products, and I'm thinking we should really stop putting plastic bottles into trash coz they're recyclable (I feel really guilty about this!).

I'm thinking of putting bins for sorting recyclables somewhere in my house... I know that plastic bottles & aluminum cans must be cleaned before being sent for recycling, so I thought about asking you guys how do you do it?

How do you...

1. Educate your family on recycling?
2. Teach them to clean stuff before putting them in the bin without making it feel like a chore (my siblings are lazy)?
3. Sort recyclable materials?

Basically, I need your inputs on how do you do it. TIA!

[MamaBee]

We have curb side pick up of recyclables, too, but every other week and up to last year, we had to sort the paper from the rest of the recyclables... now, it all gets picked up in one truck and we have to put together everything into a huge bin (provided by the city - which we are charged for...)

We wash our recyclables like they are regular dishes - it goes into the dishwasher... This was started by my hubby - I always just rinsed and then put it on the corner of the counter to take out to the bin just outside our door to the garage. The pop cans and foil go into a separate bag where my hubby will take to sell every few months... put the price on aluminum is so small, that it costs more in gas driving to recycle than what we get paid, so he is thinking of just adding it into the bin for the city to recycle.

As for teaching - I don't know - I was big on "save the environment" when I was in high school... hubby grew up with no curbside pick up, so whatever could not be composted or burnt, they had to drive to the dump. For our son - he read books on global warming and how recycling helped the environment and then we took a tour of our local recycling center... he is now the guard of our trash, pointing out things that need to be recycled.

[mariewilcox]

We have no-sort recycling in our town but my development doesn't have curbside pickup because we live in a "private" park - evidently there are too many houses up here for them to send a truck, so we take ours over to the big recycling area every couple weeks; whenever my bucket is full. I keep a large Rubbermaid bucket on our screened in porch and we just throw everything in there - we are now allowed to recycle basically anything that isn't food - plastic, cans, glass bottles/jars, plastic wrappers, cardboard, paper, and even things like Dunkin Donuts plastic cups, straws, etc. The one thing that can't go in is plastic shopping bags but we use cloth bags for shopping anyway. Our state does bottle deposits so we take beverage cans/bottles/plastic juice containers back to a different place to get our money back - that money "feeds the pig" (our piggy bank on the counter), which we use for things like going to the movies, etc.

We have a little table in our kitchen where we put washed out recyclables and then when we're done in the kitchen we make one trip out to the bucket on the porch. After doing it for so many years it's habit for both of us to just automatically rinse and set stuff on the table.

As for education, nothing specific. Cheyanne has always learned about it at school since she was in Kindergarten and it's just something we've always done.

[SeattleSheri]

Seattle is very [VERY] into recycling. We don't have to separate our recycleables or even clean them, it's all done for us. We have a big bin that gets picked up bi-weekly. Food compost has to go into the lawn refuse bin, we get fined if they find food compost in your trash bin

So in the house, we have 3 receptacles. Trash, recycle and food compost.

At work, we are also expected to recycle and bins are separated out in all of the kitchen areas (we have 25+ floors of an office building) -- trash, cans, glass, all other recycleables and compost. Most food courts or other venues do this too.

I actually get pretty put off when I go somewhere when I'm traveling and they don't recycle. I've been recycling for 25 years, lol.

[zakirahzakaria]

Sandy, love the idea on putting little notes & reminders. Hopefully they won't come out as nagging to my siblings coz I really hope they'll see the benefits of putting just a little bit of efforts on recycling.

Sheri, I think cleaning up used containers like normal dishes would help make it feel less like a 'different chore' for them. And thanks for reminding me about environmental books. I think I'll get some for my nephews (to 'brainwash' them early, LOL) & siblings. And WOW, 25 years! That's amazing! In Malaysia, we've been made aware of recycling since primary school, but it's hasn't become a part of our lifestyle yet. I really hope in the very near future, it will.

Marie, I like how you have a little table for washed recyclables. Separating them right after washing is a great habit. Love how the extra money from recycling goes to a certain piggy bank. Thank you!

[DawnMarch]

Do you really have to wash recycling? We don't. I do rinse out cans and bottles a bit if they are really dirty with food, but otherwise, we aren't required to clean ours. They have to clean it in the recycling process anyway. We also have a separate garbage bin and pick-up.

We also compost our food scraps, so we try not to throw much away -- mostly meat and plastic wrap. Believe it or not, I have a worm composter which I LOVE and is the first composter I've had in Phoenix that doesn't breed swarms of fruit flies.

[mariewilcox]

Originally Posted by DawnMarch

Do you really have to wash recycling? We don't. I do rinse out cans and bottles a bit if they are really dirty with food, but otherwise, we aren't required to clean ours. They have to clean it in the recycling process anyway. We also have a separate garbage bin and pick-up.

We're asked to "rinse" food from our things. I would rinse them anyway because of the whole aspect of wildlife being attracted to my recycling bin - anything from flies to skunks to raccoon to black bears I just don't feel the need to attract them - LOL.

[luckyme]

My city has curb-side pick up of recyclables and composting. We have black boxes for paper/cardboard; blue boxes for plastics, glass and metals; and a green bin for composting.

Garbage is picked up every other week. The blue bin and black bin get picked up on alternate weeks. The green bin is picked up every week in the summer (due to the possible smell/pests) and every other week in the other seasons.

I keep a small bin on my counter for composting that I empty every day into the big green bin in the garage. For recyclables, I keep small bins under my kitchen sink that get emptied into the garage bins whenever they're full.

Recycling and composting is mandatory here - you'll get fined for not participating.

[rach3975]

Love that some of you have a separate bin for food waste! I hope that starts here eventually.

My kids don't know any other way, and they get mad on the earth's behalf when certain things aren't recyclable that they feel should be. I can't remember when my hometown started curbside recycling, but I was still living with my parents so at least 22 years ago. I think it was a lot earlier than that, but I don't remember for sure. I definitely agree with getting your younger relatives on board; in my experience, it's the younger family members becoming passionate about things like recycling who end up convincing the older ones through their actions.

Where we live now we get a bin that we can put all recyclables into without sorting. We recycle most papers and cardboards, certain plastics, and all cans and glass bottles curbside. Things have to be cleaned first. We have a small plastic bin in our kitchen that we use until it fills up, then we bring it out to the garage and empty it into the large bin. Everyone in the family puts paper and cardboard in. For things that need rinsing, the kids leave them on the counter for me.

The one thing I can't put in the bin that I think we should be able to is plastic bags. (I use reusable bags when possible, but for our grocery pickup service there's no alternative to the disposable plastic.) So those I save up and return to a bin outside our grocery store for recycling.

[SallyWilliam]

Nice! Well, we wash the plastic bottles like regular utensils at home. However, we don't send them out to be recycled. Instead, we do a little craft and arts at home. We use these recyclable materials as decorations in our home. You guys might want to try it too. It may take a lot of your time but it will probably be worth it when you see the result.

[Traci Reed]

My county does all the recycling for us, we don't even have to have a separate bin. All the trash and recyclables go in the same bin and they sort at the landfill for you. We do have a seperate bin for green waste, which they turn into compost.