Recycling frugally?

**peanut** · 11-02-2010, 11:43 AM

How is recycling in your city/area?

Here in Regina it's pretty sad. You have to pay $30 a month for Blue Bins to come pick up, OR you can drive your stuff all over hither and yon to recycle it. Often it is a waste of time and money on gas to do the proper recycling...if we have the time to do it!

DH has put his foot down about recycling anything other than paper and computers. I make sure we get old clothes to the Salvation Army. DH isn't fond of even that run. So I make sure I bundle it with other errands.

In the end I just try to recycle as much "in house" as I can. This morning I just pulled a box out of the recycle pile to store my homemade candles in. What ways do you 'in house' recycle?

I find communities in Canada really differ in how they handle recycling. We used to live in a community north of Calgary - Airdrie. And they have a great recycling situation there! You go to one location and recycle everything at once. Okotoks has that too. I'm wondering why these larger centres don't do that. It would so much easier.

**monkeywrangler71** · 11-02-2010, 11:59 AM

The city has been picking it up at the curb for as long as I can remember.

**savvy_sniper** · 11-02-2010, 12:01 PM

We reduce, reuse, and recycle. We live in an unincorporated part of Houston Texas. So there is NO curbside recycling. I am always shocked and amazed at the amount of recyclable trash that people put to the curb.

We take all paper and cardboard to the recycling bins at any of the neighborhood schools or churches. I sell online and I reuse boxes, bubblewrap, and peanuts. I also use paper as packing material.

We have a compost pile in the backyard. All vegetable matter, grass clippings, leaves, etc. go into it.

We save and sell our aluminum.

All recyclable plastic (1-7), glass, and tin cans are saved and taken to MIL's house. She live in Houston and has a large green recycling bin with some sort of chip that is assigned to her address. She gets credit for the weight of her recycling and earns points toward gift cards.

We put less than a 13 gal trash bag to the curb per week. We don't make any extra trips to recycle. We combine taking our recyclables with other errands.

**getforfree** · 11-02-2010, 12:52 PM

Do you actually pay for somebody to take your recycled stuff? Here in Sacramento, CA the trash service is mandatory. I wish I wouldn't have to pay for it because we can live without it. All the food and veggie scraps can go into compost, and the rest of the stuff can be burned in my fireplace, except for the food cans. I sell all my bottles and recucable cans.

**peanut** · 11-02-2010, 05:06 PM

Oh MonkeyWrangler! You must be in the Halifax metro area. I have been envious of that system ever since it was introduced! And that was a long time ago.

getforfree: If you want curbside pickup, yes, you have to pay for it. It's done by a private company. In fact, a lot of our recycling is done by private companies and charity organizations. Seems odd as this is a socialist province. But hey, who am I to tell them Alberta is more socialist than them in some ways!

**McD** · 11-02-2010, 05:26 PM

Our recycling is included with our monthly trash bill. Flat rate of $10 a month for both services. Trash is picked up every week and recycling is every other.

Huge bin and I don't have to sort!

**mndtrp** · 11-02-2010, 08:06 PM

I could pay $15 a month for curbside, or I could drive it a mile to a facility where I don't have to sort. I have a large bin that takes a few weeks to fill up, and then I drive it to the center. Once I dump it off, I'll also occasionally help myself to the free mulch. The wife and I only put out about 1/3 of a kitchen bag of trash each week.

**getforfree** · 11-03-2010, 12:07 PM

I just wish we wouldn't have any trash service at all. I hate that it's required. I can live without the service and without the bill.

**Judi Dial** · 11-03-2010, 12:30 PM

We have a small town dump that recycles paper, batteries, leaves, wood, electronics, tin, aluminum, and glass.

We take it to the dump ourselves.

If recycling glass is a problem, see if your local college has a glass blowing class. The students are really happy to have "free" glass, and might come & pick it up?

IHTH!

Judi

**fernykins** · 11-03-2010, 12:37 PM

Here in Ca I recycle can, bottles and milk jugs...... I get 2.08 a pound for cans, 1.00 for plastic bottles,and a few cents for milk jugs. I get anywhere from 67.00 to over a 100.00. I don't have space for glass or paper. Lots of people here recycle. They make money doing it.
Fern

**Trishagirl** · 11-03-2010, 01:02 PM

We don't have curbside pickup for recycling. We have to take ours in town and put it in the proper bins. It really helps on our garbage size. Wish we had curbside pickup expecially in the winter!

**marmaloonbabushka** · 01-30-2011, 10:18 PM

My type of recycling is finding good stuff thrown out in the garbage bins of apartment buildings. I find lots of useful things. The size and quantity of good quality usable goods in these sorts of dumpsters are an indication of how bad the economy is around this area. Lately, the piles of unwanted but perfectly good junk is rising. Try doing some discreet appliance shopping in these areas near the end of the month, when people are fleeing for greener pastures.

**frugalfranny** · 01-31-2011, 12:46 AM

Our recycling is picked up weekly, with the trash, or you can take it to the dump station and sort it there.

The plastic is very limited.......they will take milk jugs and pete 1....that is it.

**Grayce** · 01-31-2011, 01:54 AM

Our community has a very extensive recycling program. It is picked up weekly at the curb. We recycle plastic #1-7, styrofoam, milk cartons, juice boxes, all paper, cans and glass. We also have green bin pick-up where you put organic waste like food scraps, popsicle sticks, coffee filters, cooking oils and fats, fast food cups, kleenex, paper towels, wine corks, sawdust, dryer lint etc. (it's a really long list). We do not pay separately for this. It's included in our taxes. We are limited to one bag of garbage a week. Because we can recycle so much we usually do not have any trouble staying under our limit.

**MomToTwoBoys** · 02-03-2011, 11:32 PM

Edmonton's recycling is very different from Calgary. Here, it's a blue bag system and the sorting is pretty specific. In Calgary, it was all in one bin and everything had to be clean.

I haven't started recycling yet up here because we're still going through a lot of things and getting the house situated, but once I do it'll be a whole lot easier. I just have no good place to put my Ikea sorting bins unless I stick them in the laundry room.