It has been a week and I am following up on my reduce, re-use, recycle challenge. The challenge wasn’t incredibly difficult since we already recycle; however, I did pay closer attention to what we were throwing away out of convenience.
We started the challenge with an empty recycling bin and it was my goal to put more into the recycling bin than into the trash. It didn’t happen, but one can always hope. Just for the record we ended up with two and a half bags of trash and a full recycling bin for the entire week. We would have had more in the recycling bin, but I was unable to persuade my husband to get on board with the challenge.
One of the difficulties I encountered with recycling is that our recycling program limits what it will accept. They accept the usual plastics (1-7), newspaper, glass, and aluminum but they don’t accept accept any type of cardboard or cereal boxes. I have found an alternative for the cereal boxes and I will have to locate a recycling center that accepts cardboard from the public.
After some research it was evident that I should probably set up a small composting area in our yard. We can use the composting on our garden, and it is a good teachable lesson for our children. The cereal boxes and some other things that were thrown away can be discarded into the compost bin, as well as all of our fruit and vegetable scraps. The things that weren’t recyclable were the plastic bags (frozen vegetables, cereal bags), and meat packages (styrofoam).
Recycling isn’t difficult but it sure does make things look messy with containers laying around to dry after they’ve been rinsed out. I had forgotten that the cans from our pantry could be recycled as well so we added tuna, vegetable, beans, and tomato cans to the recycling bin also.
I subscribe to the Wednesday and Sunday newspaper, mostly for the coupons on Sunday. About two months ago I started receiving the paper for the days of the week that I hadn’t subscribed to. I received a call from our newspaper stating that I would receive complimentary copies of the remaining days of the week because I was a loyal subscriber. I only read the Sunday and Wednesday and the other days immediately go into the recycle bin (I don’t have time to read the other days of the week). I need to make a call and cancel these complimentary days I’ve been receiving.
I have noticed that almost any time I order from a company online I begin receiving catalogues from the company which are sometimes delivered up to twice a month. I still want to do business with the company, but I don’t want to receive the unnecessary catalogues. I’ll need to remember which companies send me the catalogues and make a note to call them to get this part of their service cancelled.
I used my reusable shopping bags more than ever this past week. I always bring my reusable bag with me to Aldi, but I find it difficult to remember to take these into other stores with me. I almost always remember the bags as I am checking out and scold myself for not remembering since I keep these in the car now. It is something that I will have to turn into a habit to bring into the store with me every time I walk into a store.
Overall I am glad that I started the challenge, and will definitely continue with the three R’s. I know I am only a small part in the whole scheme of recycling, but I feel like I am making a difference and I like the lesson that my kids receive about recycling.I am sure that with my new recycling habits and soon to be working compost pile I will be using less trash bags saving a minute amount of money over the year.