Recycling

When I first thought about trying to recycle, it gave me a minor panic attack... How do you separate everything that gets recycled? What all can be recycled? How much will it cost to have my recycling picked up? How much would it cost to purchase all the separate bins? Where would I put them all? Where can I find somewhere to take it? Would my son mess it all up by dumping food or other garbage on top? Plus a few others.

In our old neighborhood in Alabama, quite a few houses on our street had a separate trash can for their recycling and it was picked up on a separate day than the regular trash. I thought it must take quite a dedication and time commitment to get serious about recycling. Well, I was wrong. It is so easy! All it took was a few calm moments of research to figure it all out. Here are a few things I've discovered:

1. You can put it all together! No separate bins needed! Whew....that was a biggy.

2. What can be recycled? Lots of things, but some places have different items they will or won't take. Clean paper (no food remnants or grease and it needs to be and stay dry), glass jars rinsed and dried, aluminum cans (soda, tomato sauce, etc) again, rinsed and dried, cardboard (think cereal boxes, etc), dry plastic bottles (our place only takes #1 and #2 - # located on the bottom of the bottle) and newspapers. There are more items of course, but these are the easy ones that are thrown away on a daily basis at our house.

3. Where to put it all? I was excited that I remembered a barely used trash can in our garage. I washed it out and it fit perfectly next to our current trash can. So just use something you already have! Improvise if necessary or find something at a thrift store.

4. What to do with it? There are many cities that offer curb-side pick up, but it costs money. If you can pay for it, it's an easy way to help out the environment. If you don't want to pay extra or if you city doesn't offer it, there are many locations that accept drop offs. If you are already going out for errands, why not make one more stop to drop off your recycling? Some cities even offer cash rewards for some items.

5. What about my son? That was so easy. I just explained that it was a special trash can for things we are going to "recycle"to help outside stay clean.

If I can do it, you can do it! Please feel free to comment with any ideas you have!