We’ve been on a recycling kick at home.
For quite some time, we were mostly recycling aluminum cans and wine bottles, but I finally looked up our garbage company’s site and found out that, in fact, they did a single-stream recycling where they took pretty much anything with a plastic recycle symbol, glass, paper, corrugated cardboard …
So over the past month, I’ve been making an explicit effort to throw everything into the recycle bin except for that which simply cannot. Most of the paper from the mail (I shred sensitive stuff), cardboard boxes from Amazon, rinsed out glass and cans and plastic from meal prep …
The bottom line is that we’re recycling at least as much as we’re throwing away. And that’s awfully cool.
At the office, we also have a new single-stream recycling program. In the break room, there’s now a large recycle can, and then another can next to it marked “LANDFILL.” A great reminder of what you’re doing with that other trash.
The amount is so balanced that I’ve gotten rid of the small trash can I was using for recycle, and repurposed one of our two large trash cans for that. And, so far, I haven’t had any problem with the regular garbage getting too full. Indeed, I often have additional cardboard and a small trash can from the kitchen with recycle in it to put down with the big recycling bin.
It does fill me with a bit of self-righteous pleasure (which I try to keep from turning into smugness) how we’ve changed the proportions of what we’re tossing. It’s not the only thing I can or should be doing to save the world, but it’s a part.
(Which reminds me of this related post on the origin of the recycling symbol.)