Recycling: What do you think?
I've been mulling over this post by Tammy on how to avoid paying for trash pickup since she posted it last Friday. Reading it made me realize how incredibly guilty I am of filling up the landfills. Now, I know that if you use disposable diapers or plastic plates at every meal, you can still go to heaven ;), however, as Christians, I do believe we have a responsibility to be stewards of the resources God has given us on this earth.
Since we don't have to pay for our garbage pickup, sadly, I've never stopped to consider how much trash goes out our door and into the garbage every day. To be honest, it's a lot. Much of it is because of our business (boxes, packaging supplies which can't be reused, etc.) and much of it is because I'm fastidious about clutter - I'd rather donate it to the dumpster than having it filling up my home.
However, thanks to Tammy, I've really been re-evaluating what I'm throwing out and thinking what I can do to produce less trash in the first place. I'm also even, (gasp!), considering recycling. (Those of you who know me well, know that for me to save, sort, and organize trash seems absolutely bizarre and completely uncharacteristic!)
What do you think?
Do you recycle? Why or why not? What are your thoughts on being stewards of the resources we have been given? Is this something we should put thought, time, and effort into?
Since we don't have to pay for our garbage pickup, sadly, I've never stopped to consider how much trash goes out our door and into the garbage every day. To be honest, it's a lot. Much of it is because of our business (boxes, packaging supplies which can't be reused, etc.) and much of it is because I'm fastidious about clutter - I'd rather donate it to the dumpster than having it filling up my home.
However, thanks to Tammy, I've really been re-evaluating what I'm throwing out and thinking what I can do to produce less trash in the first place. I'm also even, (gasp!), considering recycling. (Those of you who know me well, know that for me to save, sort, and organize trash seems absolutely bizarre and completely uncharacteristic!)
What do you think?
Do you recycle? Why or why not? What are your thoughts on being stewards of the resources we have been given? Is this something we should put thought, time, and effort into?
posted by Crystal Paine at 8:00 PM
26 Comments:
I don't recycle, usually. Sometimes I will. like when I have lots of boxes I will take them down to the recycling bin and recycle.
To tell you the truth I never even thought about it until I lived in MN. In MN almost everyone recycled, here in MT recycling is in the form of leaving the goods you do not want by the green dumpsters and telling someone you left it there and that is about it, at least most of the people I knew! In MN I recycled and so we used one trash barrel like every three months, because it was more cost effective when you live without running water and electricity to use disposible diapers. I seperated everything. I had a can for paper which we burned in our wood stove, one for cans which we rinsed and took the labels off of and one for non-burnables. It was frusterating when we had company and they would throw unrinsed cans in the trash and we would have to go through the trash. It was alot of work to throw something away so we thougth about it alot more. Sometimes I think about going back to doing that, I am also so thankful to not have to wash my cans, and when I have to throw away a cottage cheese container with the remains of something gross in it that I can just throw it away without have to worry if I should save it to throw in the burn pile, which I guess was polluting the air anyhow! The best way to get rid of unwanted containers of food someone discovered was to leave them where the bear would find them (I am not serious, it was an accident!) He really enjoyed all those little tapioca puddings!
I read Tammy's post: I think she makes a valid point in saying "don't buy things you're constantly having to throw away".
We live in a disposable culture.
When I was younger, I used to wonder what on earth people did before tampons. Ridiculous! I didn't even know there were alternative options. (BTW ladies - check out The Keeper - it's great.) Instead of enjoying time spent cleaning up dinner dishes at family gatherings, we simply throw our paper plates, plastic cutlery/cups, etc. What a shame. I love washing dishes with other people - what a great opportunity to talk. This is something in particular that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
It is such a shame. We are so used to the waste that we don't even think twice about it.
Recycling is important stewardship, as well as reducing consumption. The slogan 'Recycle, Reduce, Re-use' is right on target.
I say, RECYCLE!!!
Yup, I recycle. We've had recycling almost my whole life. Anothe rgreat way to get rid of boxes and clutter is freecycle (www.freecycle.org). I've gotten rid of all sorts of random things on there, including paper grocery bags I had a ton of and wanted to see reused before recycled.
I'm Mel, Blogger in Beta won't let me sign in here since I switched over, :(. I am sure they will have that problem solved soon.
Anyway, We used to recycle when we lived on Military bases which provided us convenient recycling bins to set out on the curb with our trash every week, and even then it was tough to get the kids to remember where all the trash was supposed to go. Now, living in a very small town, all we can recycle without driving 30 miles are cardboard boxes, which we try to re-use for our business shipping anyway. It just costs too much in gas to recycle anything else.
I am a fan of burning instead of throwing stuff in a landfill, too. I don't really know why, I just feel like it isn't as bad.
I do use cloth diapers and cloth wipes, and cloth pads until a few months ago :), which elimates a lot of trash for us. We also use a pellet stove in the winter, which is very efficient and we have a high efficiency washer and dryer (a gift from the hubster after #5 was born). We save a lot of our paper trash for camping trips to use to help get fires started.
I guess we recycle more than I thought, although I wish we could do more.
Well, in our town, we're "required" to recycle, so we do. I used to really hate doing it, but now I actually like the idea of not throwing so much away. We have a town dump (er . . . "transfer station :)), where we take our trash. They have places for cans, aluminum, cardboard, plastics, magazines, newspapers, etc. It is a pain to separate it all, but I like the idea that it's not ALL going in the landfills. I do hope to switch to using mostly cloth diapers when we can afford to buy a bunch, because that a lot of our trash is made up of disposables and I feel bad about that. They really pile up fast! We do use paper plates and paper towels a LOT--I would like to cut down on that, but it is just easier sometimes, especially with little kids.
I wouldn't consider myself an environmentalist, but I do think that we should take better care of all the things God has given us--including His creation. I also like the idea of reusing things and making do with what we have, like folks did in the Depression and WWII years, rather than throwing things away so much. It's one area I'm trying to work on, slowly . . . :)
Our town charges (per receptacle) for garbage pickup but not for recycling pickup, so I've had the incentive to recycle for as long as we've lived here. It's a good system, too- the recycling program supposedly pays for itself, and you don't have to sort the recyclables ever since the city converted to a new recycling company (it's a Blue Barrel program). The instructions say not to worry about throwing a recyclable container away if it's very dirty, as the water used to clean off a lot of grime would be more valuable than recycling the container in our thirsty desert.
Besides using the city recycling pickup, we also compost a lot of our kitchen & yard waste, plus we have a dog- I always joke that between recycling, composting and the dog, not much goes in the trash around here. I plan on using cloth diapers & wipes as much as is practical once our son is born (we got a high-efficiency washer recently and I usually line-dry, so added water & electricity use is less of a concern), and I also try not to buy items with a lot of non-reuseable packaging; things like that add up.
Some of the local grocery stores will give you a nickel credit for every grocery bag that you bring in to reuse, so that's nice. Having any kind of practical incentive is enough inspiration for me to be careful about what goes into the trash.
You don't recycle?! Wow. In Australia, EVERYBODY is given a recyle bin (trash can) and a regular garbage bin. The recyle ones are often bigger. And if your bins are over-filled, they won't be collected! I think everybody would recycle to some extent! In our case, if we didn't recyle, we would have to pay to dump our own rubbish at the dump!!! Maybe they should introduce this in your country to give you an incentive. ;)
hi i am from australia so i may be way off base here :O) but do you guys have a thing called freecycle on the net? i use it a lot to get rid of my clutter- it is amazing the sorts of things that other people want!!
I hate clutter too, so I tend to throw alot of stuff away quickly rather than finding someone else to take it or finding a use for it. Since starting to recycle over a year ago, I've noticed much less garbage for us, which also reduces the amount of kitchen trash bags we use. We don't use a lot of disposables(paper plates, paper towels,napkins, etc.). I am starting to wash out my ziplocs(unless they've held raw meat) and using them at least one more time. After learning the hard way, I keep a reasonable amount of suitable boxes for Christmas gift giving. I have started to reduce the amount of wrapping paper I use, since it's usually thrown away right away after opening the gift.
It's difficult to find a balance in this, but so important to be a good steward in what God has given us.
Hello, Crystal! Before we moved to MD, I wanted so badly to recycle, but never had the chance. The only thing I could do was save up paper and take it in to work. In MD, the recycling program was great. Cans, 1 and 2 plastics, glass, and ALL paper could be recycled, and you didn't even have to separate it.The Type A in me enjoyed that though.I was using only 3 garbage bags a week, which was good for us. Here in WV, we can only recycle newsprint, cans, and 1 and 2 plastics. The garbage really piles up now. Now that it's cooling off, I'm going to start a scrap pile outside. The farmgirl in me just hates throwing out organic food matter. Sure wish I had a pig or goat! I try to reuse as much as possible. I clean and collect glass containers for food and sundry storage, reuse paper for scrap and counter liners, and try to buy the least amount of packaging possible. When you do mostly whole foods, trash accumulation goes down. I'm looking forward to trying natural feminine products (never knew they were available) and have convinced myself that yes I can do cloth diapers next go round.
I recycle, but our town is about to do away with curbside recycling. So, in preparation for that time, I've quit putting my soda cans out with the rest of my recycling, and I'm saving them for a place that gives money for my cans. Paper and bottles will have have to be carried off (by me) to a recycling center about once a month. I believe recycling to be part of being a good steward, but if I'm sick, stuff goes in the trash because I just don't have the energy.
We are required to recycle, as well. Takes up a good part of Saturday sorting everything. Very inconvenient. I heard somewhere that the plants that actually DO the recycling pollute the air. Not sure if that is accurate. I am so used to recycling that it doesn't bother me, now. We can have trash pick up, but you have to pay for it. The town dump is free (when I say free I mean the taxpayers support it).
However, I will continue using sanitary napkins and disposable diapers. Sorry.
Absolutely recycle. Hello, creation mandate. This kind of stewardship of God's earth is hardly a matter of option or opinion.
I recycle as much as I can.We are spoiled because the city provides a trash can that is almost as big as the normal one for the trash.I can pretty much get it filled with boxes from food,glass and plastic bottles,plastic bags and newsppapers.I have never given too much thought into why I do it-I guess because the city gave us a trash can to put the items in and I don't have to drive to recycle bins like I have done in the past.Recycling has become second nature to me.
I recycle and it's pretty easy. The rule here in NYC is that paper-type goods go into one container and plastic and glass goes into another, and then it gets picked up once a week. So in the apartment I have two containers and just seperate as I go along with my life. I try to recycle as much as I can - it really only takes a second to rinse out a can or collapse a box. I recycle most of my grocery containers.
When my containers are full I pull the bags out and put them in the outside pick-up containers the landlord provides. The super then comes once a week and puts them on the curb for the whole building. Nice!
Where I grew up, pop cans and bottles have a deposit - 10 cents. This makes it very easy to recycle, because you pay the deposit up front when you buy the pop and then take the empties back to the store to get a voucher for your deposit back. You almost never see empty pop or beer cans around because people will go around collecting them for additional (and sometimes even primary) income.
I recycle all the time, and I feel pretty strongly about it. That said, I am very lucky that my community promotes recycling and makes it very easy. Trash pick up is once a week and recycling goes on the curb along with the trash, but you don't need any special bins or sorting containers. All cans (pop and soup etc), glass, plastics go in a plastic grocery/Target bag. All paper goes in a brown paper grocery bag, and newspaper can be tied in bundles or put in a paper grocery bag. Corrugated cardboard can just be left stacked up at the curb. It's so easy! My office doesn't recycle and I feel it is so wasteful - so I oftentimes take recyclables home so they don't add to the trash here.
I know some people don't have a good system available to them, but I think recycling is one of the easiest ways we can be good stewards of the earth. I don't do composting like Tammy does, but we never have more than one bag of garbage per week. (13 gallon kitchen size bag) I see our neighbors who are putting out 6-10 bags of garbage each week and I want to go through it and take out the recyclables! (I would NEVER do that, I just sometimes have the urge!)
Sara
Wow! This is incredible that so many of you recycle! I'm realizing a trend here, though. Most of you that do recycle it appears like your community really encourages it or requires it. Our community does nothing of this sort. In fact, I know no one here that recycles. Maybe that's why I've never really even considered it much before. If I were to start recycling, I don't even know where I would go to try and start. It would definitely take quite a bit of extra effort and I guess that's what has always kept me back before. The time and work and effort involved, plus not having a place to store and organize trash in our little home made it seem like it wasn't worth it. Also, I guess I don't want to spend hours of effort on something at the expense of other things which have always seemed more important (I know, I know, some of you probably think I'm terrible for not seeing recycling as of great importance - bear with me!) However, we are planning to move soon and then will have enough space for me to begin trying to do this in earnest. Also, I'm trying to think of easy ways I can eliminate trash. For those who only have 1-3 trahs bags of trash per week, how do you eliminate so much trash. We've always used mostly cloth diapers, only use paper products on occasion, rarely use paper towels, save scrap paper to reuse, reuse Ziploc and plastic bags, cook mostly from scratch, reuse all boxes and business packing supplies we can, I've never been one to be wasteful - or at least, so I thought - but we still seem to produce an enormous amount of trash. We can't have a compost pile right now due to where we live - though I plan to start that once we move. I'd love to hear suggestions on reducing garbage in the first place since it seems so many of you are doing an excellent job of this.
Our city recycles, and I'm so used to it that it still surprises me to hear of other cities who don't. I wonder how common it is? Anyway, we have a recycle bin in the garage right outside the kitchen door, and we toss cans, paper, plastic, etc all together. It's picked up on trash day and the city sorts it. Very nice!
Crystal,
http://www.kansasbirp.com/howtorecycle.html.
Just keep three different, small bins in your kitchen: one for aluminum cans/metals, one for paper and paper products, and one for glass (there is a small amount of compensation for delivery of these materials in some areas). In the bathroom, keep a plastic bag under the sink to hold plastic bottles, wrappers, etc. Perishable waste can go down the disposal if you have one, or into paper garbage bags. Buy or make resuaable cloth grocery bags to use for grocery shopping.
It's easy.
Thanks, MM. I am the type of person who needs really practical ideas to make myself realize that this is not as hard as I am making myself think it is. That was extremely helpful. Anyone else?
I would encourage the readers from NYC to recycle as much as possible since they ship a lot of their trash to VT. Nice. Vt takes it, though. I guess they need the money.
I must admit - I, too, am shocked to see that so many people don't recycle or view it as an important issue. I think Womanhood is right, though - it seems like it depends on the community and their programs/incentives.
I wish every community was like the one Samara described. It really should be the norm that we recycle, not the exception.
Our town is kind of like Crystal's. There is no limit on how much trash you can put out, and the nearest recycling center is about 70-80 miles away. So, nobody here recycles, because it is so much trouble. I love MM's idea of making grocery bags. Shopping for ten people brings in a lot of those plastic bags, and the store will not reuse them. I wish that supermarkets still had paper bags. They are so much easier to use and can be recycled or used over and over again.
RECYCLE!!!
I don't even know why a Christian would bother to ask this question. Care for the earth is a part of the stewardship responsibility we carry as image-bearers of God, and recycling is a very easy way to do it.
Well, I'll be the first to admit that when we lived in a small apartment (with no garage) and trash pick-up was a required flat rate, I didn't think as much about what I was tossing ;) Now we have a garage, and so I keep the recyclables out there.
I flatten boxes, smash cans (or stack smaller cans inside larger ones), stuff like that so it takes up less space.
I am not an "environmentalist" and recycling isn't a huge issue to me, but on the other hand, I do think it's good; first, to conserve and reduce what we use, and then to recycle. It's much better to not have tons of stuff to recycle, obviously! :)
And Joshua was reading up on compost, since we started our compost pile, and he read that food scraps or organic matter that will turn into compost on a compost pile won't decompose into compost in a landfill, because it's not the right environment. We've dumped lots of garbage on our compost pile, but it keeps "sinking" or something, and doesn't look like much at all! It would have been several big bags' worth if I were throwing it in the trash.
But you asked how people avoid having so much trash. I'm not sure.... I guess for example, I try to "conserve" on laundry. We don't wear dirty clothes, but I don't change the childrens' outfits every single day. Joshua's work clothes needs washed after one wear, but his other clothes lasts for a couple days before it needs washed.
So, the less clothes we throw in the wash, the less soap and water we use (and unless it's a very dirty load, I use about 1/2 the recommended soap amount, and never fabric softener), and the less soap/fabric softener/etc. we use, the fewer plastic bottles we have to throw away. Make sense? :) Sounds like it wouldn't really make a difference, but it's just a lot of little things that add up.
One of the reasons I like home canning (besides the high quality of food :D) is that I have very few glass jars to recycle. Or rather, "recycling" my glass involves washing the canning jar with my dishes and storing it until next year's garden harvest to be re-filled! ;) That's definitely less energy than it takes to recycle glass on a larger scale. (Not that I've researched recycling...)
We do have a few things that we simply can't cut out OR recycle. Light bulbs, for example. We are trying to use mostly the energy-efficient light bulbs, which last a long time, but we still have some regular ones and every month or two, there's a dead one to throw away. And spiral notebooks (the metal part), empty pens, etc...
But once you're separating your trash and seeing what is actually accumulating into trash, it's easier to figure out how to reduce. For example, I like to use notebook paper in a 3-ring binder rather than a spiral notebook when possible, because there's less waste. Or, gradually decrease how liberally you use things like shampoo, lotion, laundry detergent, hair gel, etc. and you'll empty fewer containers. It's good to recycle, it's better to re-use (when possible), and it's even better to reduce what you use. :)
And it's unrealistic to expect to change your lifestyle overnight. It's a gradual process, and it takes time to learn, like anything new. But once you're accustomed to conserving more, or have made major changes (like switching to cloth napkins, washable cleaning rags/products, or cloth diapers) you'll hardly notice the extra bother. :)
Whoa... this got long! I'm going to "recycle" it into a post on my blog ;)
Well my family owns a garbage company so I'm a little biased :)
But (gulp) I really think it is good to recycle.You really need to be careful because some places that say they recycle really don't.They just pick up the regular trash then move on to the recycling box and dump it with the rest.(Believe me I know.)Just thought I would let you know to check the company that you use to really see if they are actually recycling!
Kristyn McAdams
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