What Goes In Your Recycle Bin?

[staceyy]

I'm curious as to what goes in your recycle bin and if you even recycle. Do you wash out bottles and cans before you dispose of them? Do you throw anything with glass, newspaper, plastic, or metal in the bin or are you more discriminating? Are there certain things the recycle center refuses to take? Are you charged for the pickup?

I throw anything with glass, plastic or metal in the bin and I only rinse if I think it will smell up my kitchen. Today the recycle truck refused to take a bag of makeup in jars I was throwing out but they declined to tell me why. I don't rinse out most cans and jars because I don't understand why I should be doing for free something I believe the recycling company should be doing with the money we pay them in taxes. I can't see using my water and time in this way. I do however comply with recycling the items as I can see the value in protecting the environment and I do not believe in wasting.

[Droppedonmyhead]

We don't do recycling in my area. I thought at one time we were going to be required to do it, but they changed their minds. I don't personally know of anyone in my area who recycles anything.

[ktsmama]

Our local city garbage pickup does accept recycling. I put all of my cans, plastic and glass in mine. I also rinse everything out, just because I don't want to attract bugs or anything like that.

[Laurie in Bradenton]

We have a county wide recycle program, with which you get 2 plastic blue bins. Bin #1 is for paper but no cardboard or heavy paper like cearl or pizza boxes.
Bin#2 is for glass and metal. We rinse out all our containers as it costs the program to do it and there by lowers the value of the program. I just put things into the dish washer and rinse them that way.
Personal we do not recycle aluminum, brass or stainless steel throught the county program but take those items to our local scrape yard and collect the money ourselves. If you have a big enought pile they will also buy your cardboard, but the amount needed is usually only filled by businesses such as resturants.
We also have yard waste recycled its ground up out at the dump and you can go and pick up free mulch.

Laurie in Bradenton

[Goodwin17]

We don't have a recycling program in our town. What is strange is there are like 4 different garbage collection companies, and I've noticed that none of them have recycling.

[QuilterMom]

We have county wide recycling and every homeowner is charged for recycling pickup whether you recycle or not.

Our county accepts newspaper and newspaper inserts, # 1 and #2 plastics, glass, aluminum cans, and tin cans.

We do recycle everything that we don't reuse (I reuse glass containers for other storage purposes, etc.).

We are not required to rinse items out, but I do because my bins sit on my front porch and I don't need all the various wild animals around here getting into them. The raccoons are famous for coming and poking around in the bins.

[brainyblonde]

We have a countywide curbside program. Our two trash pick-ups a week changed to one trash pick-up and one recycling pick-up a week. The recycling pick-up alternates - one week it is paper and cardboard, the next week it is bottles and cans. There are some restrictions - can't recycle any box contaminated with food (like pizza boxes) or wax-coated boxes that freezer items sometimes come in, only plastic bottles (narrow necks), etc. In addition, there are scheduled pick-ups twice a month for grass clippings/yard waste in the summer and leaves in the fall. Special collections are made for Christmas trees in January. There is no pick up at all for any bulk-type items (appliances, tires, etc.) through the county. You can pay a contractor or take them to the dump yourself. What a STINKY place that is!

These services are included in our property taxes.

[YankeeMom]

They take everything, pretty much. There's very little that they do not take.

Plastic: laundry detergent bottles, butter tubs, milk jugs, etc.

paper: newspaper, magazines, junk mail

glass: unbroken! jars, bottles.

metal: food cans only. No paint, oil, or other hazardous materials that were in the cans. Also no soda cans, we recycle those at the grocery stores & get 5c per can back (we pay that 5c deposit when we pay for the soda).

cardboard: corrugated only, preferably flattened but they aren't strict about it.

All the plastic, glass, & metal are rinsed out THOROUGHLY before sorting them. Mostly because we have to go 2-3 weeks in between recycling pick up times & it starts to stink & get buggy.

[guest32]

I try to recycle as much as I possible can! My family calls me the recycling nazi! We have curbside recyclying on our regualr trash day. You just have to seperate it out and flatten any cardboard (they are super strict about this) They do not, however, recycle glass. So, I do all paper and cardboard, tin cans, soda cans, any plastics with the recycle emblem. When my friend house sat for us, she couldn't believe how little trash we had....then she saw my recycle boxes....now she's a convert. We live in the county and there is no extra charge for this. City resident actually get *credit* for recycling! (our city is very *green* oriented) We also recycle grass clippings. I hate to see people putting out bags and bags of grass clippings, it just makes me cringe! We found a place locally that lets us dump our grass for free. We have 1/2 acre, so it's a pickup load every week.

[baxjul]

We recycle everything that isn't being reused! We take it all to the local recycling center every weekend!

[MOMMYDEAREST]

mainly junk mail, newspapers, detergent bottles, pop cans, wine bottles (opps did i say that?), milk jugs, vegetable cans, etc.

[LastDragonfly]

We don't recycle out here. I wish we did. Pretty soon all of NM will be the landfill for America. I learned to recycle when we lived in Seattle. OMG! That was an awakening for sure, but out here it is laughed at. I recycle where I can, i.e. cans etc. but I try to reuse things such as those WAL-mart bags. OMG! They multiply overnight.

Its weird here because I still observe people litter. Yes, I can't believe it. I would smack my kids if they should throw chewing gum on the ground. (ok, maybe I wouldn't smack them, but they'd never do it again I assure you) But I mean I see grown ups doing this. It is so annoying!

[Scattymum]

we have a recycling collection and what doesnt go in that then we take into the recycling centre

with the collection we recycle plastics, milk cartons, waxed and unwaxed paper, food and drink cans

in the centre they take just about anything, batteries, lightbulbs, glass bottles, plastic bags, stamps, books and magazines, cooking oil - they even take electrical equipment and things such as fridges. there really isnt that much that they will not take.

the books that end up in the recycling centre are put on shelves and you can just take what you want and then bring it back or keep it, i get alot of the kids books there

[YankeeMom]

When my friend house sat for us, she couldn't believe how little trash we had....then she saw my recycle boxes....now she's a convert. We live in the county and there is no extra charge for this.

This is very similar to how it works in our city. Recycling is free and there's no limit. Garbage costs $$$ to be picked up. So by recycling as much as possible, our family of six rarely has more than three 13-gallon trash bags per week. When we lived in a housing area, I was ASTONISHED at the amt of trash people put out. Not only that, but you can really tell how people live by the trash they put out. Ten to twenty pizza boxes, convenience food boxes, soda case boxes, etc. all overflowing out of their recycling bins (none of that is recyclable here, by the way lol but they put it out there anyway) then they have three or four HUGE trash cans overflowing every week....and they're only a family of two adults.

Dh says I'm too nosy

[guest32]

For some reason, I am amazed by other people's trash too. Like Heather said...you can tell a lot about people by their trash!