Okay, I'm kind of venting here but doesn't everyone out there recycle? For some reason I am the only one in my family who does. When visiting, most members of my family will say "You recycle, don't you?" or ask "Do you recycle this? Where should I put it?" (although my mom just let's everything collect on the counter) This week, we were taking out the garbage after the company left and found cans in the bag. It wasn't even asked about so I'm assuming recycling isn't even an option in their lives. It kind of makes me angry because I feel that recycling cans, plastic, and newspapers is the minimum we ALL should be doing. I mean, we can only dig a hole so big (landfill) and we can only put so much in that hole so doesn't it make sense that the more we keep out of that hole the more time we have before we have to dig another one? And all of these people live were there is pick up and probably only have to put all recyclables in one container by the curb. How hard is that? We, like many of you, have to haul our own trash and sort our own recycling. And we lament that there aren't as many recycling options here as there are other places!

Is there a way to let these people know that they should be recycling out of their homes, too and not just out of mine? I know you can't tell people what to do in their homes but I thought recycling was like part of being a considerate human being -people shouldn't litter, people should recycle what they can, etc. Or is it just my family? (And thanks for letting me vent!) :)

-- Bren (wayoufarm@skybest.com), October 10, 2001

Answers

I don't do any formal recycling. Out here ther really is no place to take it. Maybe Steubenville, but it is 75 miles away!! I try to decrease my amount of throw-away trash by not purchasing many things that need to be thrown away. Like canning and re-using the jars. Using any plastic containers over and over, re-using zip lock bags and foil. Papers I either burn in my woodburner, or shred and use for mulching. What trash I throw away is very little. I don't buy pop very often. When I do it is a 2 liter bottle, which we use for ice-water. Fill 1/2 with water, freeze and then fill with water to use. I will have to look into it and see if there is any kind of re- cycling program closer to me. I think there was years ago but it closed down. This is probably an area we could all be even more diligent about. Thanks for bringing it up!

-- Melissa (cmnorris@1st.net), October 10, 2001.

Our first introduction to recycling was the compost pile. My dad had basically three categories: compost, burnables, and trash. When people started recycling more, he began separating the cans, plastics, and glass. I, like Melissa, try to minimize the almount of throw-aways that come into the house. I use jars for canning and plastic containers for freezing. Here in Canada you can get your milk in bags (which we reuse) or plastic jugs (which have a 25 cent refund). I hear that in Ottawa they are required to recycle as much as possible, and they are now piloting a compost program where they take any food scraps (including meat and the paper it got wrapped in) and making compost to sell. Ottawa citizens will put their compostables in a special smell-proof bin that will go out on the curb for pickup. We live in the country but are still on the garbage routes so recycling is as easy as putting stuff in the bin. However, I try to reuse as much as I can. I have seen quite a few women in the stores bringing their own cloth shopping bags or reusing ones they got previously. You can't can with the new jars stuff comes in, but you can reuse them for jelly, dried beans, popcorn, etc. I use margarine tubs (there's a man in our church who gives us margarine) for freezing pumpkin, leftovers, and ice for the cooler or the ice cream freezer.

It's not just your family. Usually it takes a while for folks to be willing to go out of their way to recycle. That's why communities have started giving out the bins and requiring them to recycle. Keep encouraging them and be patient. The generation between the Depression and the big push for recycling has been so used to throwing away, that it will take time for them to change their habits.

-- Cathy N. (keeper8@attcanada.ca), October 10, 2001.

Wow, Melissa. I'm so surprised that there's not a recycling center near you. We live in a very rural county yet there are several "convenience centers" throughout the county. I wonder if recycling is a state run thing? Like some states have better roads than others, maybe some states have better recycling programs?

I wonder if you could find other people around you who would also like to recycle and form a sort of recycling co-op. Maybe through your church? Every one could bring their recycling every 6 weeks/6 months and then people take turns driving it to the nearest center. Of course you have the usual coordination problems and people have to have vehicles that could transport a possibly large amount of recycling but maybe it's worth pursuing. Just an idea! :) My husband has put his 2 cents in and says a lot of recycling programs startwith one person.

-- Bren (wayoutfarm@skybest.com), October 10, 2001.

We've always recycled ever since there was such a thing. But you know, no one else in our families recylces at all. Now there is a big landfill about 2 miles from my place and you can see it from my kitchen window. Now they've planted grass all over the covered parts to disguise it, but it's still a mountain of gross trash growing bigger every day. Our name for it is Trashcan Mountain.

-- vicki in NW OH (thga76@aol.com), October 10, 2001.

I usually recycle everything I can. It's a little hard now with moving and all. I only know two other people that recycle anything on a regular basis8~{

-- Cindy (S.E.IN) (atilrthehony@countrylife.net), October 10, 2001.

I live in the heart of steel/coal country and environmental concerns are not real high up on the list of priorities. I really don't know anyone who actively recycles. I do try not to generate much trash and use/re-use everything I can. One day I was talking about wind and solar power and one of my husbands old friends (over 80) said I sounded like one of those "green" people!! He didn't mean it as a compliment!!!!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), October 10, 2001.

We don't have nearby recycling either- We can take cans, milk jugs and some papers to a town about twenty miles away-we uasaully wait til we (three families) have a pickup truck load and then someone who has to go there anyway takes it in. We have "curbside" trashpick-up- though the nearest curb is six miles away-our three families share one can so we can't throw much out....

I know what your saying Bren, though my family is pretty good about recylcling,- others.... I don't know how many times I take my canvas bags to the grocery, they will put the stuff in plastic bags then put it in the canvas ones. I often feel like a wierd Greenpeacenik but I do it anyway. I don't know the answer, just make sure your household recycles and hope others will follow your example.

-- Kelly in Ky. (ksaderholm@yahoo.com), October 10, 2001.

Kelly, is there an Aldi's or some other bag-your-own store nearby? There are two that I know of in our town; they have the added benefit of having the lowest prices on almost everything.

-- Cathy N. (keeper8@attcanada.ca), October 10, 2001.

Lots of us "recycle" here at home. We use the 2 ltr. bottles for water storage, the old foam cups for seed starts, we use old cardboard and newspaper to mulch or garden, we use old jars for seed saving, we use cloth diapers, we re-use lots of containers. Many years of plants have been grown in them. You do not have to do it like a city slicker to be effective. I have seen plenty of recycling programs that waste money and time and even some that ended up in the same place as regular trash. Much better to be strange and do it my way.

-- notnow (notnow05@yahoo.com), October 10, 2001.

I've been involved with a recycling program in my town for about 12 years. A group of us (we later became the Recycling Committee) received a grant of $500 from a local non-profit group that allowed us to set up a "drop-off" situation to see if there was an interest in the community to recycle. We coordinated this with our trash contractor to provide 30 yard containers for collection and empty them if we did the collection work. We were pleasantly surprised at the turn out. That started a once a month drop-off collection that lasted for six years until (through our trash contract) we were able to achieve curbside collection which we have had for six years.

The bigger problem has been conviencing those who don't recycle to begin recycling. We have had fair success by talking "trash" with the local school children, speaking at church groups and various organizations (basically anyone who would listen) and writing recycling articles for the local papers and organizational newsletters.

The first challenge is to make it easy and convenient for people to do. Many people just don't want to be bothered. I firmly believe in the 20-60-20 rule: 20% of the people WILL recycle regardless how much trouble it is; 60% of the people WILL recycle most of the time if it's not too much trouble; and 20% of the people WILL NOT recycle no matter what!

If you want to start a recycling program in your town, the place to begin is by putting together a Recycling Committee of 7 to 9 like- minded people. Have the committee meet with your local government/health department if you have a town sponsored (paid for by your taxes) trash collection. Convience your town manager to include recycling along with curb-side pickup of trash in the next trash contract. If you carry your own trash to a landfill, then you could speak to the owners of the landfill to suggest a recycling drop- off situation. Many landfill operations do include some recycling opportunities (i.e., aluminum/steel collections and leaf/brush/grass clippings collections because it's financially worth-while to them). The biggest hurtle in any recycling program will be educating the people who would use it.

Good luck.

Wishing you enough.

-- Trevilians (aka Dianne in Mass) (Trevilians@mediaone.net), October 11, 2001.

I take great pride in the fact that we add very little to the land fill. We never have any "garbage". That all goes to the chickens, dog or compost pile. I do a lot of my shopping at a co-op where you can bring your own containers and I always take my own cloth bags to carry everything in. The co-op also has bins outside for plastic and glass and old phone books. I buy very little in cans. Jars that I think I can reuse, I save. Pop cans are recycled for the aluminum (what few we have). We burn all paper products on our property. I reuse everything that I can find a use for. I also get upset at company who never asks where things go. After having company, I always find food leftovers and pop cans in with the burnables and it is very frustrating. All these people live in the city and have recycling with there trash pick-up but I assume they don't use it. Maybe if the cities start charging by how many trash cans they put out it would help? Now, Cindy, you know someone else who recycles!

-- Barb in Ky. (bjconthefarm@yahoo.com), October 11, 2001.

Bren, nearly all my family is like that, can fill up a whole kitchen garbage can in one day. My suggestion is to try very hard not to come off as seeming self righteous about it. You will only alienate them and make them feel opposed to it. You could occasionally mention if they complimant your garden, how you feel that the compost is what really brings out the colors in the flowers, or boosts the tomato production, etc. Or talk about how the trash fees have gone up and you are so glad you don't have much trash because it would cost you an arm and a leg!! You can ask if they will all save their cans for you, most family members are happy to do that much, and maybe the rest will follow in time.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), October 11, 2001.

O.K. Folks clue me in-what is "Aldi's"? I've head it mentioned on other forums as well, but other than that I've never heard of it-I'm tellin'ya folks, I'm waaaaaaay out in the boonies (but thats Fine!)

-- Kelly in Ky (ksaderholm@yahoo.com), October 11, 2001.

Aldi's is a discount grocery store. They have them here in central Indiana but I don't know if there are any in Kentucky.

-- Sherri C (CeltiaSkye@aol.com), October 11, 2001.

Felt I must (shamefully) respond here. This forum is like group therapy for me - LOL. Most of you that "know" me from the countryside forum, know that I wage my own wars even in-house. Try as I may to get SOMETHING to grow in my "garden" I rarely have any luck. But I keep trying. Another "battle" in my household is that of waste - in MANY areas - We waste everything (and NO I am NOT proud of it, I am TRYING to CHANGE it). We waste electricity (running the dryer three times b/c you forgot to get your things out when the dryer first stopped), Money - We buy too much fast food (which a lot of it winds up in the trash any way). We spend WAY too much money (usually) on holidays and birthdays etc. We waste water. But back to the recycling, I have been wanting to get serious about recycling in our household for quite sometime now. The county provides us with the bins and picks it up curbside (I live in the city), but I STILL can't get everyone to cooperate. I think it's motre of a changing old habits (LAZINESS) than anything else really. I have a problem with bugs as well. When I have tried to recycle our soda cans in the past, even if I rinsed them out first, it would draw ants and bugs. Our recycling bins are on our back porch as I have no space inside to store them. Also I'm not really sure what to recycle. I don't know if I breakdown our cereal and other cardboard boxes if they take those or newspapers only (which we DO recycle - some I shred for use in my garden spot and the rest go off to the recycling center). What about plastics? Do they take the blue Downy bottles or only the clear plastic 2 liter soda bottles? I've tried to contact our local recycling center but believe it or not the folks I spoke to didn't really have the answers to my questions either. I suppose I could put it in there to be recycled and see if they take it or not. What are they going to do - sort through all my trash there on the side of the road; take what they want and leave the rest in my bin on the curb? Anyway, if any of you have any tips for me that would help to get my family more involved (esp. hubby) I would appreciate it. My son's school collects the little tabs off of the soda cans and they donate to Canine Companions (an organization that trains dogs to help the disabled). I can't even get my husband to pop the little tabs off. He throws them straight into the trash. So many of my efforts are thwarted by family members who don't see eye to eye. Funny though - THEY aren't the ones responsible for the trash at our house - I am. We have WAY too much trash for a family of 5. I know b/c I'm the one who has to take care of it all. Maybe if the trash were someone else's responsibility, they would understand where I'm coming from. As for myself, I WANT to conserve more. I WANT to recycle and cut down on waste in ANY form. PLEASE HELP!!! Feel free to email me directly if you would like to. And thank you for your help.

-- Greenthumbelina (sck8107@aol.com), October 11, 2001.

Hello Bren, Here we recycle everything! One reason we recycle is because we do not have garbage pick up. Another reason we recycle is because we believe that our society wastes too much. We think that recycling is fun and profitable. What tin cans we do not use for containers or projects get sold to the nearby salvage yard ($10.00 a ton). We do not get anything for glass but, we reuse as much of the containers that we can. Meli's uses any jar that will take a canning lid for canning our harvest. Other jars are used for everything from storage containers to drinking glasses. Aluminum is also salvaged, (32 cents a pound). I am self-employed as a handyman and occasionally get to take home the "goodies" that my customer want to dispose of. I took down a corral fence last year and that gave me enough weather 2x6s to build my entire a-frame outhouse. Another customer gave me some used tin roofing which I used to build my toolshed with. We have been building our house (also an a-frame) and we put in "all" used windows and doors that we bought for $12.00 at an auction. My chicken coup was made entirely from roofing tin that another customer gave me. Shoot, if I even bend a nail, I will take time to straighten it out and use it. With food, we reuse all our leftovers to create exotic stir fries, cassaroles, or soups. Whatever is left from those dishes is recycled again to feed the chickens or the dogs. Grass clippings along with other misc. vegetation is recycled into compost for our gardens. Meli has a wringer washer and she recycles that water several times as she is washing. I have taken building materials from one project and disassembled them into another project. I can go on and on about the many ways we recycle but, it is more than just "recycling" it is attempting to be frugal and self determined. All of which go hand-in-hand with homesteading. And you would never know that we recycle so much by looking at our homestead, since all materials are used or sold immediately as not to have a "littered look" on our land! Sincerely,

-- http://communities.msn.com/livingoffthelandintheozarks (espresso42@hotmail.com), October 11, 2001.

Hi Bren, Where I used to live, the garbage pick-up was included in our property tax and it was $178 per year per house, regardless of the amount of garbage. At the time, I lived alone, composted, burned, recycled and had only 1 bag of garbage each month. The house next to me had 6 children and a mountain of garbage each week. NOT FAIR NOT FAIR!! Now, where we live, we have to take our trash to the town disposal site and pay $1 per bag. We still burn our paper trash, still compost, recycle glass, plastics, cardboard, newspaper, magazines,& tin. Now, actual garbage that goes to the landfill costs us about $20 each year. I've reduced the amount of non-recyclable things that we buy and that has helped considerably. I buy powdered laundry soap instead of bottles of liquid, to save on space. I don't buy frozen meals that come in containers. Even though something is recyclable, it still needed to be manufactured, and that takes energy. I even have a 5 gallon bucket in the lunch room at work and many people are donating their banana peels, coffee grounds, etc for my compost. In turn, I bring in tomatoes, zuchini and other garden surplus for them. I've initiated a white paper recycling program in the office at work too. Many people were afraid of confidential materials being seen, so we have the shredder sitting next to the recycle box, and that helps. I've also used the white shredded paper in the compost pile. I too, am shocked over the waste that people have. I know that I'm doing my part and educating others in the process. Each person or family must decide what to do and either their heart is in it, or not. Just can't win them all.

-- Charleen in WNY (harperhill@eznet.net), October 12, 2001.