Wish there were more people like you aok27502, conscious of the refuse they generate. I'm amazed that the majority of folks any place I have ever lived require the largest (and most expensive, month after month) tote that the garbage removal service offers. And it's usually filled to overflowing every week! My wife and I can always get by with the smallest, often they will accept a smaller size if you provide it yourself. Currently we fill an 18 gallon tote with non-recyclables each week. Composting is key, and just not buying so darn much stuff. Pay attention to how things are packaged, if it's "overpackaged" don't buy it.

I know larger families will generate more garbage, but thats a whole other discussion.....

I agree, schizac. I get so darned iritated at my in-laws, they absolutely refuse to recycle anything, it's "too much trouble". We don't have garbage pickup, as we're not in town and we'd have to pay the private service. We live three miles from the local "convenience center" (dump) so we just take it when it needs taking. They also take all of the recyclables there, so it truly is convenient.

I try to look at packaging, but sometimes there isn't a choice. I frequently decline a bag in the store, if there is no real need for one. I *should* take my canvas bags to the grocery, but I never remember. I do compost to some extent, but we generate very little of that stuff. I keep veggie scraps to make stock, so by the time they're cooked up, there isn't much to compost. I guess overall we do pretty well, just gotta keep trying.

find out where the grocery bags go - around here the regional govt recycling program includes "domestic" plastics, and they allow any plastic packaging from grocery bags to bread bags to yoghurt containers to oil jugs, just NO styrafoam

Bill

We sometimes re-use plastic bread bags. Other things like yogurt cups can be recycled. Some stores, Whole Foods for sure, sell meat wrapped in butcher paper so you can avoid plastic by getting it freshly wrapped in paper.

Is the scrap material you are burnig solid wood or pressed wood, plywood, etc.? You shouldn't burn any pressed wood product, primarily because of the formaldehyde. I did a quick google search for more info on this and will post one of the hits. The very end of the document has the cautionary statement. Otherwise, a more general search on formaldehyde should give you more info.

Here is a link that might be useful: air quality

We sometimes re-use plastic bread bags.

Here in the Twin Cities, many grocery stores have a collection point for clean plastic bags; they're recycled into lawn furniture and the like. My mom uses her bread bags to pick up after the dog; I've used clean bags to wrap lunches, double-wrap food for the freezer, hold loose objects for storage (most bags I buy are clear, so I can see what's inside), etc. Maybe you could find someone with a dog who'd be happy to have more bags? I'm not above rinsing out a bag before it gets recycled, either, but I'm aware that the hot water I'm using has to come from somewhere and that it's too easy to take the recycling too far.

Other things like yogurt cups can be recycled.
Check your local recyclers. Here in Ramsey County you can recycle only #1 and #2 plastics, and some recycling companies are sticklers about the "must have a neck" rule. My argument is that if it has a screwtop or fliptop, it must have a neck, even if it's a stout neck like a peanut butter jar. If #2 with a neck is a different plastic than #2 without a neck, then they need a different number. :-)

Some stores, Whole Foods for sure, sell meat wrapped in butcher paper so you can avoid plastic by getting it freshly wrapped in paper.

But that paper should not be recycled, either. Some of it is wax-coated; some of it has plasticizers; all of it has food residue, which should not be added to otherwise-dry materials for recycling.

AOK...just a comment about your wood burning endeavors, if I may. I'm sure you already know this, but pressure treated wood should never be used as fire wood. This topic has come up in another forum, so I thought I'd just mention it. ;-)

Interesting about the regional recyclers taking other plastics. Maybe I'll do a little research. Our recycling center takes all plastics of all numbers.

No, we don't much burn plywood, perhaps an occasional scrap. Mostly scraps from my husband's wood shop, or pieces of household baseboard trims and moldings. We never burn treated lumber, yep we know better ;). We also burn a fair bit of actual firewood, most all of which we have cut and collected ourselves, so we know it doesn't contain artificial ingredients. :)

Interesting thread. I also try to recycle everything, and find myself irritated with excess packaging - not to mention having the urge to clunk the grocery clerks over the head when they try to give me four plastic bags for five items!

Between recycling and composting, we are down to one kitchen bag of garbage per week (sometimes three bags every two weeks) for a family of four. My neighbors across the street, a family of five, regularly puts out two or three *cans* a week - don't know how many bags in each can.

aok, if you throw your canvas bags in the car as soon as you empty them, they'll always be there when you stop in at the store - of course, if you are like me, you will remember at the checkout that you left them in the car, and then you have to be very quick to tell the cashier you want paper before they grab the plastic.

I wish our recycling took more stuff. They only take #1 & #2 plastics, no plastic bags (even #2 - supposedly they get caught in the machines - which makes me wonder how they are recycled when you return them to the grocery store bin). The city has recently started taking corrugated cardboard, which is good, and junk mail, most of which I shred to compost anyway.

Similar to the bread bags are the newspaper bags. I start my day off every morning going out at 5:30AM and picking up the paper from the driveway, grumbling that it's in a plastic bag even in dry weather, and then coming in the house wondering how I can dispose of the bag other than throwing it away. I tried saving them once to give back to the delivery person, but I've never once seen him/her(??) in over five years...

I hear ya on the in-laws. My in-laws say the same thing - "too much trouble". Sheesh...

Happy to see this forum. I'm hoping to pick up a lot of ideas!

Dee

diggerdee - Our newpaper delivery plastic bags can go in with the plastic grocery bags for recycling. And keeping the canvas bags in the car is a great idea. I somehow have a mental block against that very thing!

OK, here's another one for suggestions: what about those big chunks of hard styrofoam that you get when you buy a small appliance or a computer?

Doggone it, I had another one, but I've forgotten. It'll come to me and I'll be back.

I'm back, I remembered. Does anyone know anything about the recycling industry? Specifically, our collection point used to make you separate glass, aluminum, steel cans, and newspaper/junk mail. Now, they call it "mixed" recycling and it all gets dumped in together. It's just way hard for me to believe that it is cheaper or more efficient to separate it out later. Are they REALLY recycling it all, or are they dumping it when no one is looking?

aok, I live in Seattle, and the city is very good about recycling aluminum, glass, cardboard, mixed paper, newspaper,plastic bags, and most hard plastics. I looked at the City's website and they have a nice slide show on how all the co-mingled recycling materials get separated. See the link below. Perhaps it is similar in your area. At one time, we separated different materials into different containers. However, the city discovered that more people would recycle more if only glass was separated and all other recycling materials were put in one larger container. If it's easier for people, they'll do more!

Here is a link that might be useful: recycling slide show

Wow, taddy, that's cool!! Thanks for posting. I assumed that there was an actual process, but it just didn't seem very efficient. Now I know.

BTW, ours doesn't require glass to be separated. I wonder what they do with that?

Good question, aok. Perhaps you could send an email to your solid waste people and ask them.

That was an interesting link, taddy. Thanks! The recycling in my area has never requested that we separate glass. Steve, when you mentioned the "neck/no-neck" thing, it reminded me of how amazed I was when my mom told me that her recycling program would only take wide-mouth glass jars - or was it that they would NOT take wide-mouth glass jars? But either way, I couldn't believe that they would distinguish between these. Maybe I'm naive and don't know enough about the process, but it seems to me that a jar is a jar! Oh well, the good news is that now her program takes all jars.

In looking through that link, I was intrigued by how many different things could "contaminate" the process. I was never aware of that. Now I wonder that programs never asked us to remove labels from cans and especially jars.

We have a local "garbage museum" that my kids have visited several times on school trips. Maybe I should make a visit and learn more about the process!

:)
Dee

at our place anything that will rot generally ends up in the garden, then we seperate and recycle that other material like glass, tins etc into the recyle waste bin for collection.

so the only stuff that ends up in the trash bin is plastic wrap and styrofoam material, so our bin doesn't weigh much and it is hardly ever over 1/2 full.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page

The main reason why many recycling schemes take certain items and not others, although both are made from the same material is almost always because of their contents.

The bottles with necks only rule is because those products contained liquids, any remains of which are easily washed away during processing, while jars contained all kinds of sticky messy things that present a cleaning problem. We have a similar rule with plastics, we can recycle the bottles but not the tubs.

We could recycle a lot more if they were certain the waste would be relatively clean, but unfortunately, a lot of people don't bother to clean things before recycling them.

Yes, bry84, you're right about that! When my in-laws say it's too much trouble to recycle, they mean it's too much trouble to rinse/clean their jars, bottles, etc. I just don't get their way of thinking...

Dee

it doesn't really matter how clean glass containers are for recycling - there's 2 possible uses, both of which start with crushing the glass containers, the primary use now [because there's just so much of it] is simply to grind it to smoothish pea gravel size pieces and spread it on dirt roads or as landfill cover, cuz after all it's basicly just sand

the lesser use is as "cullet" for inclusion [in small percentages] in the glass container making process - that's why originally they wanted seperated colors, because only clear can be used in making new clear, clear or green in making green, any color in making brown ... unfortunately the percentage they can use is small and an immense amount of container glass comes from overseas

Bill

Now I wonder that programs never asked us to remove labels from cans and especially jars.

As squeeze points out, labels on jars are immaterial to their recycled use. Labels on cans also are immaterial because the heat needed to reclaim them pretty much does in any paper or glue remaining on the metal.

The bottles with necks only rule is because those products contained liquids, any remains of which are easily washed away during processing, while jars contained all kinds of sticky messy things that present a cleaning problem.

You'd think they'd be using some industrial solvent that wouldn't be fazed by peanut butter, spaghetti sauce, or bean starch. *sigh*

I suspect the reason for the neck/no neck might be because of different glass composition - "clear" glass can also be "flint" glass, different than the usual clear because traditionally it contains 4%Â60% lead oxide [as in lead crystal] .... more wide mouth "clear" containers used to be more durable flint glass, cheaper corked/necked containers weren't .... I think most flint now uses other minerals, but at one point flint glass was considered a contaminant, almost toxic waste

Bill

I've stumbled across websites and TV shows (HGTV) that showed cutting plastic bags into strips and crocheting the strips into tote bags.

Neat idea if your a crafty person

Leaving tote bags in the car or the house seems to be an almost universal problem! With my poor memory, I have to resort to putting my purse in one particular spot in the house, with the car keys attached to it. My string bag grocery totes go in the same place, and my purse INSIDE them. In the car, my purse sits inside or on top of any bags left there.
I know this sounds kind of dumb, but on the other hand, since the shoe fits me...:-)