Yesterday I asked if any of you had any organizing issues you'd like for me to address. Lindzi had two, one of which I'll post about later but one which I want to bicker about right now!
Recycling. We all want to do our share for the environment, don't we?! I certainly do but where live that opportunity to do something great has been taken away from me. When we moved in ten years ago there was a great system where we collected all newspapers, cardboard etc and put it outside on the curb once a month. That system was discontinued when they placed a smallish recycling center close-by. It was perfect. We don't have a car so I used to take grocery bag loads of recyclables to the center before work as it was on the way to the bus. Our system at home looked something like this at the time with grocery bags under the sink. One for paper, one for glass and one for plastic bottles and cans.
Suddenly a few years ago the recycling center was suddenly gone! No warning. Nothing. It just wasn't there anymore! I called the people in charge who told me they'd removed it because it got messy and littered around the center. Of course it did! They didn't empty the darn thing often enough so when people got there in the mornings and the containers where full they obviously didn't want to bring the bags on the bus to work, did they?! So they (and I) placed them next to the containers and it rained and was windy so the stuff got soaked and blown around. Instead of emptying it more often their solution to the problem was to remove the recycling center. This left me with two options. 1) To ride around on my bike with all my trash to the nearest other center, which is not nearby at all. 2) To recycle what I can and throw the rest in the garbage. Unfortunately for the environment I felt I had to opt for #2, I just don't have the time for those extra bike-rides.
So in the Larsson household we nowadays recycle batteries which go in a mesh bag in the broom closet.
We recycle plastic bottles which go under the sink together with the news papers which most often get reused in different ways and sometimes recycled but also sometimes thrown in the trash. Glass jars most often get reused but bottles go in the trash. We have two containers hanging on the door under the sink. One for "regular" trash and the other one with the lid for scraps of vegetables, rice, pasta etc to go in the warm composting bin outside.
Outside there's the warm composting bin and next to it the garbage container. To the right there's a small trash can which contains a metal scoop and saw dust with which we spread over the compost every time we empty anything in there.
We also have two leaf composts behind the hedge at the front of the house and three composts for all garden cuttings etc at the back of the house.
There. That's our system, Lindzi. Thank you for getting that load off my chest, I'm done now.
