Do You Recycle?
I am not an environmentalist per say, but I am an avid recycler. I have seen far too many pictures of landfills not to understand the impact all that waste has. If I can do this one small thing to keep at least some waste out of the landfill, then I am all for it.
We have set up this stack of bins in our main floor laundry room. This makes it convenient for depositing our recycles without having to run downstairs to the larger bins constantly. I am talking about aluminum, glass, cardboard, plastic, and paper. We shred our office paper.
We go to the recycling area every other week to empty our large bins. We make this a habit like taking out the trash, which in reality it is. This trash does not end up in the landfill, though, and I like that.
To date we have not ventured down the path of composting. I am not ruling it out, but it seems like a lot more effort than general recycling.
We try to buy in bulk when it also makes economical sense. Buy the family pack of meat and then repackage for the freezer. We have a vacuum sealer that we absolutely love and we give it a workout on a regular basis.
We donate clothes and other items to Goodwill. Works for us and works for them. Nice tax deduction as a bonus. We can all use those.
There is also a place not far away that takes all the old batteries and electronics that you can’t take anyplace else. We use rechargeable batteries, but there are items that come with batteries and they are not typically rechargeable and will need to be discarded at some point.
We started using the new lightbulbs before they became popular. They are more efficient and last longer.
What about you? Do you recycle? Why or why not?
Don’t forget to follow Geek Girl on Facebook and Twitter.
Filed in: Uncategorized
I do and I agree with you. We are lucky. The city where we live has recycling pick-up every other week and they sort it. All we need to do is to put the recycling material into a ben for pick-up and they do the rest. Easy peasy. 🙂
So jealous…. 🙂
We do recycle because our city also makes it easy: put acceptable items in the bin, put it on street side and every week they pick it up. I'm mixed about doing this because over the YEARS of recycling I wonder about things like the tradeoff between tearing up our road and highway infrastructure is not everyone is playing the recycle game. For now, we still do.
Composting is big in the Washington SE area but not here in VA.
I would seem that if it is offered in your area it makes it easy to participate. If we want to recycle, we have to make the effort. Nothing easy here…
We try NOT to create unnecessary waste – but we do recycle what we can. We make stock out of vegetable tops and skin, since we really can't compost with a concrete garden. And we filter our water instead of drinking bottled agua. New York's got the best tasting water, I have to admit. Now, if we could get the beer bottles under control…
Very nice… Can't help you with that whole beer bottle thing though… 🙂
Actually do recycle and it's convenient in the sense that you don't have to change your garbage bag that often:-) Kills two birds with one stone – good for the environment and comfortable.
another very good point… less garbage bags being used. 🙂
I started recycling before we had curbside pick-up. It was hard to do so when we lived in an apartment and didn't have a gargage. Still, like anything in life, if a person truly wants something they will make room for it. I can't imagine not recyling. It's the responsible thing to do and not really much bother at all. In the school I used to work in, the business teacher recycled paper for the entire school, otherwise it would have been thrown away in the landfill.
We started recycling before it was popular, too. It was those photos of landfills that really hit home with me.