Recycling....

I finally a few months ago got myself together, and bought those recycling containers that go at the curb along with the garbage for the recycle trucks to collect.

And I am amazed at the amount of household paper, glass, metal and plastic that is available for recycling everyday.

Do you know that even some of the shopping (plastic or mixed material) bags have stamps with the number that says if it's recyclable or not?

Milk/juice containers, pickle/spice/jam etc glass jars, all kind of plastic - yogurt cups for example, are 100% recyclable.
You can recycle Styrofoam, aluminium, metal cans (tuna, tomato juice)
shampoo bottles - really,anything.

Paper as long as it is not greasy, I think.

Apart from having pleasant feeling of doing something positive for the environment, we realized we now produce a lot less garbage this way.

So, if you haven't started yet, may I enthusiastically give you a coaching yell: hey, just go and start today!!
you'll love it!!

Green Risa

I just heard the other day that in the near future our toilet paper is going to be much rougher. The softness comes from the more broken down fibers of recycled paper. The problem is there is less and less paper being used by people and business along with dwindling newspapers. So recycled paper is becoming scarce.

So toilet paper is going to have a higher virgin paper content and much less softness.

In my area in UK, we have had always two large bins - one black for ordinary household waste, and one green for all garden waste (leaves, weeds etc), as well as all plain carboard packaging.
Then we also have two boxes one blue for ordinary paper waste (newspapers and any wasted paper) and one brown for bottles and plastic.

Then about few weeks ago we were also provided with another two smaller boxes which are to be only for the food waste, that can be composted such us: potato peelings, uneaten meat, vegetables, egg shells, coffe/tea grains, food left-overs in fact any kind of such waste.
You keep the smaller container in the kitchen so you can drop all food waste right away, and the bigger one outside by your kitchen door.
Then you empty the smaller brown container into the bigger one every night, rinse it, and it is ready for the next day's use.
Then, the larger container is collected with all other garbage once a week.

Both container have a clever safety lock so the curious animals cannot get at them, and also to prevent smells.
So far it works, but we shall see how it will be when the hotter weather kicks in - I am a little concerned about the smell by the kitchen door, but we shall see.
I must admit that I love this solution, since this prevents the normal old large garbage bins to smell, and because the left over food is put to a good use - as a compost.

I am all for collecting the waste and recyckling and this is why I also prefer buying good old antique furniture rather then the new plastic looking stuff, which is nearly as epensive to buy, but not only worthless if you want to get rid of it, but it soon looks dated and out of fashion.
I had recently bought and had restored another such item: a beautiful 18th century chest of drawers which needed more loving care, and this gives me so much pleasure to look at this glowing old piece as it is treasured, loved and still very much in use after two long centuries.

I also try to give away after each season my unused clothes to people whom I know and can make use of it (young students, or my cleaner and her Portugese friends) or to charities rather then to throw things away.
I love to shop in our charity shops as well, where I often find little treasures for home, or for my on use (lovely silver neacklace recently).

I am all for recyckling and I hate waste when it could be used to a useful purpose. But I do not like it when people make a religion out of it and bore you to death by lecturing you about driving miles to places to dispose of say, few old batteries, or used printer inks etc.
I use common sense in all this, but try to do my best.

I also see that the young people are much, much more aware of the issue - like my 8y old g-dson who has made a bright little poster at home and stuck it above their dustbin, sayig in big bright letters:
Recyckle!
And he means it, too.
It is their world now, and we have to listen to them. Our generation has been much, much too wasteful.

Senna

Recycling is mandatory where I live.
We either reach a yearly goal of recycled wastes or we pay extra-taxes.

We must recycle (and do it correctly!):

organic remainings
glass
plastic
alluminium
paper

So, on my balcony I have 5 bins and I must be careful not to mix things.

I'm fine with most of the reclying. I used to do it even before it was mandatory as I think it's a good thing for the planet.
I only hate to recycle organic stuff in summertime. Wherever I put my bin it smells horribly and I'm obliged to discard it 2 times a day. The containers in our condo yard are far from apartments, but when you go closer to the "organic bins" in hot days you feel like chocking despite they have a cap stuffed with active carbon.

Also here in the office we try to recycle but I have seen the cleaning ladies put the remaining of paper, plastic and glass all together despite there are separate bins to collect these materials. I think that for Companies the rules of extra-taxing are not applicable....What a stupid thing

It is mandatory here too. In some areas of Britain, people have been fined for putting the wrong trash in the wrong bin.
The council has bugs stuck in the bins, it is pretty outrageous given they don't always give much of a collection service.
When it snowed this winter our rubbish wasn't taken for 5 weeks. People were complaining and a lot of rats were seen.

Currently where we live we have three 240 litre bins. One for Recycling. One for garden waste, and one for everything else.
We do not get a weekly collection. It is rubbish one week and recycling and garden the next.
Most things can be recycled. Cans (washed) plastic....most kinds now. Newspapers. Cereal boxes.Telephone directories. Yogurt cartons. It was more restricted at first, but they gradually added more in.

We have been prolific recyclers for many years as my husband helped set it all up at our local council when he was a director there. We recycle everything possible and have done for about 15 years or more now.

It's not the answer to the landfill problem though.
We all need to do our bit but, the manufacturers need to stop producing so much packaging.
That is moving us into controversy.
Our government has yet to address this area.

I've been recycling for years and rather than put all of it in the recycling bin, I save my cans, bottles, plastics and take them to the recycling center for some cash! If I'm going to pay a recycling fee when I buy drinks in cans or bottles, I'm going to get my money back! The Center is just a mile from my home so it is very convenient.

Paper, bags, boxes, etc... go in the bin. We don't do organic here so that just goes in the trash. When I lived in a house though, we composted and had great gardening soil.

Also... use reusable bags for shopping. So much better than collecting grocery bags.

Alli

Long, long before the word "recycle" even existed rural farmers were doing it. The ones that are called rednecks, hicks, hillbilly's etc. It's efficient and just pure common sense. And the concept was not developed by some urbanite that teaches enviro sciences even though they try insinuate they did.

We have goats to clear brush which is cheaper and safer then using herbicides. Their droppings get spread equally around to become fertilizer which is also free and non-toxic. But the Seattle City Counsel tries to come off with using goats to clear brushy hillsides as their brilliant progressive idea. It's been done for millenniums by ranchers. The supposedly unwashed and uneducated that could not possibly do something so intelligent, conventional and efficient.

Recycling is great but I constantly shake my head in disbelief how it has been hijacked by urbanites and city people as being "their" concept. Nature has been doing it since the very beginning.

It is not the brainstorm of some enviro science professor. Lets give credit where credit is do.

So true, so true! Growing up, we had a HUGE compost heap. We were so used to composting that we didn't even know we were "progressive" until the urbanites labelled it as such.

Having a Nana who lived out in the "sticks", we were also used to finding many uses for one thing. Nothing got thrown out till it was literally in pieces, then most of the time it went into the fireplace.

The Urban Recycler has such a chip on their shoulder about how great they are being to the Earth, but they won't give up their conveniences! My rule obsessed Apt Manager gets so ticked off at me when my few bags of recylable bottles and cans becomes "unsightly" (on my own patio that I pay rent for!). But they want us to recycle and provide bins for it, but not enough for the size of our complex. I just ignore her and wait til I have enoug to make the trip worthwhile.

I remember after the big fire we had here in Oakland how "progressive" Berkeley and Oakland were when they brought in the goats to keep the brush down. I had to chuckle. Before that the goats were a nuiscance.

And they make great pets that do not have claws or fangs and do not bark at 3:00 AM because there is a squirrel in the neighbor's tree.

I am constantly amazed at what they will eat. Berry vines, thistle, bark, conifer needles etc. They must have the toughest mouths and no taste buds at all. And they are always game to wrestle and do their fake head butts at you no matter how old they are.

And no matter what they eat it all comes out in little compact pellets that dry real quick. So your kids can be out playing with them and not have poo on their shoes to track into the house. When we clean their barn out we just use a broom and it takes less then five minutes. Compare that to horses or cows.

Oh they are fantastic critters. Due to dairy allergies my brother and I had, my parents had a herd of 9 nannies and we had 20 some kids. I was only little and would often go play with them. Mom never had to worry about me as the nannies would form a circle and pass me around - 'mothering' me. We lived where there were rattlers and I was always safe with the goats. I can also remember times where a nanny kidded in the wrong season and we had babies in the house to keep them alive. Very curious creatures and often escaped pens - scared my mom half to death when they figured out how to climb the basement stairs and were banging on the door!

Granted these are a bit bigger than yours Brent as they were Togs, Alpine and a couple Nubians. And do not get Nubians if you want peace and quiet - noisy buggers! Ours were rather picky eaters though and wouldn't eat just anything. What they wouldn't eat we threw to the horses or cows.

Too funny! They are very precocious for sure. Our little pygmies only make noise occasionally and we can't hear them in the house.

My daughter had Jasper (the black one in the pic) in her room one time back when she was five. He was only a few months old and about the size of a poodle. She did not want to have a tea party by herself so had a "guest".

These guys are the ultimate recyclers. They will process more fruit and veggie scraps in one day then a full size recycler bin. And much more fun to play with.

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Jasper was on Fox news five years ago. His mom abandoned him. So my mother in law just put him in with some Norwegian elk hound pups. He nursed right along with them and mom didn't mind. But he did outgrow the puppy demand and had to be bottle fed for a couple weeks. Our local TV news did a story about him and then it was picked up by Fox.

The waste and recycling companies should have very large herds of goats to eat the waste produce. They can compost it in less the 24 hrs compared to months for just anaerobic bacteria. Plus composting requires constant aeration so it does just rot.

The land the goats have been on is very organically fertile and devoid of weeds. Ready to planted with a useful crop.

here's a way that might help with stuff that could turn stinky really quick.

sometimes it's not good to grind up stuff with the disposer (risk clogging up your pipes causing a back-up). instead, wrap whatever things like chicken bones, fatty stuff, etc in plastic or alu. foil and freeze it. it won't stick, and on trash day just chuck it in the bag.

we recycle a lot of stuff--even plastic oil containers can go in.

speaking of oil...this is done on a much larger scale in Europe--it's the use of synthetic oils. some standards for oils can go as far as 17,000 miles. BMW says you can do so in the U.S., but noooooo waaay. if you're leasing...ha, let the next sucker enjoy the engine damage. most European makers run fully synthetic in their cars.

if you own or are paying off the loan on a car, you can do extended changes as far as 7,500 to 10,000 miles safely with synthetic oil (all depends on the grade). Castrol & Mobil 1 are long life oils, and each mfg. has a listing of what is long life.

since i'm a car nut, i do 1 year or 5,000 miles.

synthetic costs a bit more, but it protects your engine quite well and has an extended life.

I do all my own oil changes so I was tickled to start using the 15k synthetic. Instead of 2-3 times per year now it's once a year. Since I drive extended highway speeds then syn is a better option.

And even better I get a 2 MPG increase since using it. The down side it's around $8 per qt. but it's an investment and I do save money in the long run.

We don't have mandatory recycling in our area, but we try to recycle what we can when we can.

There are places to take empty cans (pop and beer cans). We reuse many of the plastic containers (like peanut butter, miracle whip, etc.) for storing nuts and bolts, nails and other paraphenalia in my husband's garage/shop. It helps keep it organized a bit. Wish there was somewhere local that took cardboard, newspaper and magazines. We usually pass on the newspapers and magazines for others to read, but they need a place to go when the reading has been read out of them.

Love your pygmy goats, Brent. Growing up on a farm, we had lots of animals but never goats. I'd love to try them on our 3 acres. What type of fence do you use for them? How do they get along with dogs?

We use regular 4' metal field fence and a combination of metal and wood posts. Our goats and choc lab get along great and play tag and king of the dog house. Youtube has a lot of videos of goats and dogs playing so generally it looks like the do OK.

Brent, the regular woven wire fence--I think it's 4"? Wondering if electric fence would work with them, the kind that's movable. That way you could move them around the yard as needed and wouldn't have to fence in the entire area.

Ya, it has the 4" squares. We have harnesses for them and put them on a 15' cable that we can hook to trees. That lets them be moved to where ever there is brush. Just regular dog harnesses work great.

We have to use a very low power electric fence wire in the spring to keep them from rubbing on the fence to shed out. They can destroy a fence real quick by throwing their bodies into them. My daughter does a good job of keeping them brushed out. She puts the wool on our bird feeding platform. They use it for nesting. (more recycling)

Wish there was somewhere local that took cardboard, newspaper and magazines.

I dunno about magazines - glossy - but the other I simply put into recycle bins and they go.

We here in Canada have recycle centers that accept those, and telephone books, too - don't you have those in US?
If not, then consider sending them to Brent- goats truly eat EVERYTHING

Risa

We're in a very rural, remote area that does not have recycling facilities nearby. The nearest city of good size is 220 miles one way. There used to be a recycler of cardboard/paper in a town 75 miles away, but they closed. Our local recycle center burned down a few years ago and there was no insurance or funds to rebuild. Such is the problem in very rural areas.

We have it but the coyotes would get into the bins and spread it everywhere. So now my wife uses the ones at her work. Every Tues. on my way to work I would see someone's recyclables dumped all over the place or someone madly trying to pick it all up and not be late for work.

So I opted to not play that little game and do it differently.

Oh I see- then perhaps these contraptions would be of use to you Tecky:

http://woodstoves.newarchaeology.com/makelogs.php
or this:
http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/wp-content/uploads/logroller.jpg
or this:
http://www.woodburningstoveslimited.com/images/318_1.gif

I suppose with a shredder you can make practically any paper into fireplace or wood stove bricks.

Risa

So I opted to not play that little game and do it differently

.

A mystery man, eh? I like that
So, what do you do Mystery Man?

Risa

My wife takes the cans and bottles to work and uses the recycle bins. A lot of our cardboard gets cut up into little squares and soaked in wax to use as fire starters. The rest of the cardboard gets burned outside. We can still do that out here.

Our phone book is just over 1/2" thick. It gets burned in the wood stove.

Since discovering that shreded paper can go in the compost to make it have more air in to increase the action in the compost bin I have there is less going to the recycle. We have garden waste collection but I only use it if the weeds are nasty and don't die well in the composting bin in the back garden.

They still use black plastic bags here which is really stupid because when the weather is bad the seaguls come in from the coast and rip them open, but they have a seperate box for cardboard and glass and tins etc. If we have plastic bottles though we have to take them to a collection point in the car park behind the shops in the village centre, so I know a lot of people don't bother and put it in with the unrecyclable stuff.

Di