Going Greener: Going beyond Curbside Recycling

I'm actually pretty excited about what I've learned about recycling beyond our curbside recycling program. Before we get into that, I'll say a little about curbside recycling.

It's appalling to me that there are many families on our street that don't take advantage of the free, little effort required opportunity to recycle at the curb. That's all I'm going to say about that.

My mother's side of the family comes from a very rural area of West Virginia. It's a good 30 minutes to the closest Walmart. The amazing thing-they have curbside recycling and have for at least 6 years. My point is that if you do not have curbside recycling, you might want to consider rallying your community to take action. Washington County, Virginia I'm talking to you.

Our curbside pick up hits most of the basics, clear and brown glass, plastics 1 & 2, aluminum, etc. However, with a little research it's likely you can find somewhere on your daily path that will go above and beyond these materials.

Our community is littered with green and yellow dumpsters for paper recycling by PaperRetriever. You can find these dumpsters at all the local schools, the YMCA, and goodwills. The great thing about these dumpsters is that it is a fundraiser for the organization that sponsors the dumpster. You can recycle catalogs, newspapers, office and school paper, and mail. However, they do not take any form of plastic, so you have to cut the plastic windows out of all those junk mail envelopes. Click here to see if there is a dumpster near you. If not, consider looking into getting one for your local school, church, or civic group.Joshua says, "Be Cool & Recycle!"

We have been sorting all our paper out this month and I'm amazed at the reduction it's made. I took a picture of our home office trash one week, but can't seem to find it. Basically the recyclable stuff was overflowing it's basket and the trash amounted to about 10 plastic windows from junk mail.

What I'm even more excited about it that I just learned that I can drop off pressed cardboard at a collection site just down the road. What is pressed cardboard? Cereal boxes, cardboard egg cartons, etc. Basically anything type of box that isn't waxed (such as an orange juice carton). That is probably the element that takes up most of our trash right now, so this will greatly reduce our trash volume. While our local transfer station doesn't take corrugated cardboard, the main hub does, so when we have shipping boxes etc we can take them there for recycling. To find a recycling center near you, click here to check out Earth911. For you Austinites, the Austin Recycling Center information can be found here.

In summary:
*Use your curbside recycling to it's fullest!
*Check to see if Paper Retriever has a dumpster near you for all your paper trash.
*Check out Earth911 for drop off recycling in your community for everything else, especially pressed cardboard.

P.S. You can also recycle most of your plastic bags at the grocery store, but I'm going to talk about that another day.