Excited About Recycling

My gosh we have been into recycling since we were newlyweds, back when recycling was more a norm than a luxury.  Re-using and re-purposing items was quite common.  In the 1980's the blue box was introduced and in some communities like Guelph, Ontario just about everything including baby's diapers can be put into the recycle bins.  They have a three tier recycling system that includes paper, metal/plastics and wets (eg. kitchen waste, diapers).  Their system is absolutely amazing with very little going into the garbage.

For the past almost ten years we have lived semi-rural and rural.  The recycling service was dismal at best yet we still had one.  They would take cardboard, newspapers, tin cans, glass and plastic pop bottles.  Anything that wasn't to be in the bins they would toss back into the yard, not always the best thing to have blowing around.  They would not take the plastic tub containers that sour cream and cottage cheese come in. 


We have a new recycling system at our new house.  The black bin is used for all fibre products like paper beverage cartons, household paper/newspaper, catalogues, books, telephone books, cardboard, boxboard and egg cartons.  The blue bin is for food, beverages and liquid containers including sour cream and cottage cheese tubs AND aluminum foil containers and foil.  They will even take milk cartons!  We can get a compost bin from the municipality for $25 and we are planning on installing a garburator so actual garbage going to the landfill will be greatly reduced.  I was quite surprised that over the last week our actual garbage to toss out amounted to less than a grocery bag. 


This new system has sparked my interest in recycling again.  Don't get me wrong as I found a lot of creative ways to recycle containers but this is so much easier.  They collect the bins every other week.  We don't drink much in the way of soft drinks or use commercially canned foods so this collection schedule works well for us.  We have extra cardboard due to the move but once that is cleared there should be little all the way around going to the curb.


Garden Gnome
©2006-2011