Healthy FamilyThankfully our town has curbside recycling now, but it didn’t for a while, and when we lived in Vancouver, we had to recycle without curbside pick-up
It may not be as easy, but you really can recycle without curbside pick-up!Â
At one point, I wrote about how I believe Christians should care for Creation by recycling. Really, it all boils down to stewardship. Are we being good stewards of this world God gave us–or are we not?
But I realize that my family has it pretty easy.
As I showed you in the video clip, we simply collect our recyclables in a small trash can that stays in our kitchen pantry, transfer the contents of that trash can to a larger one in the garage once it is full and we then walk all of a few yards to the big recycling trash can that the city picks up every other week.
Easy-peasy.
I know that’s not an option for many of you. And IÂ get that. I really do.
When we first moved back to the U.S. after our semester living in Vancouver, BC, Canada, we desperately wanted to continue recycling. But our town did not offer a recycling service at the time!
We were frustrated, to say the least!
We called around and discovered that our town wasn’t quite as anti-recycling as we had thought: They did recycle at the local dump; residents just had to sort and bring in the recycling themselves.
And so our little recycling system was born.
At the time, we were still living in a two-bedroom townhouse. Space for recyclables was very limited.
We had enough room in our closet pantry for a full-sized trash can. It’s actually the same trash can we still use for our recycling in our garage!
We placed all of our recyclables in that pantry trash can.
When it was all of the way full, I brought out paper bags, and I sorted everything right in my kitchen floor.
I used individual bags for plastics, glass, metal, paper and cardboard.
I liked sorting at home instead of at the actual dump because it made it such a quick drop-off since I would arrive with everything already ready to go!
The dump was just a few minutes from our house, and we visited there about once per week.
I will not lie. I was shouting with excitement when our town instituted the curbside pick-up! But still…I was happy to recycle this slightly-inconvenient way for three years.
So there you have it. You can recycle without curbside pick-up in 3 easy steps:
- Determine a location in your home to store recyclables. (A second trash can will suffice!)
- Sort the recyclables yourself.
- Take your sorted recyclables to your nearest recycling center.
If you have room, you can even use separate bins for separate recyclables. Each place may have a different list of what they can or cannot recycle, so check with your local center.
Every little bit helps!
If you are unsure of the location of your nearest recycling center, this link can help you out. Simply type in your zip code, and it will pull up recycling centers in your area! This is will also tell you where you can recycle things like cell phones or other technology or items that cannot be taken to the dump.
Does your town have curbside pick-up for recycling? Do you recycle? Why or why not?
Interested in learning more about green living?
My friend Emily, of Live Renewed, has recently released a 250+-page ebook guide ALL about green living! In this ebook, Emily will teach you step-by-step how to “green” your life!
Like me, Emily’s desire to be a good steward of Creation spring from her love for the Lord.
To find out more about Green Your Life, click here.Â
Donna Crawford
Our little town had to quit curbside pickup of recyclables for financial reasons. But they still have the recycle center where you can drop off. And they do the sorting and provide the jumbo bags! We keep a small bin in the house and a large can in the garage and drop off usually once a week.
Erin
That’s so convenient that you don’t have to sort!!
Amie
I love your enthusiasm, but our nearest recycling center is 30 miles away in a direction we never travel. There’s just no way we can regularly take recyclables. I’m a new follower; do you have posts about composting or reusing things people without recycling throw away?
Erin
Haha, Amie–I don’t blame you! Our recycling center was so close that it wasn’t an inconvenience. I do not know that I would have gone to the trouble if it had been as far away as yours! I do not have any on composting yet, but that may come this spring. Hubby just made me a compost pile in the corner of our back yard! Thanks for reading! 🙂
lauren
My (small) hometown doesn’t offer curbside pickup of any type – trash, recycling etc. it is all private service. My parents trash companies always offered it, but I recently moved and my new (even smaller) town also does not offer curbside pickup and recently closed the town landfill (which did have recycling) in the past year as well. We have a dumpster at my building but no recycling. I guess I will need to look into whether the town still has a recycling center or if an adjacent town will let me bring my recyclables to their’s… Hmmm…
lauren
And thanks for your motivation to do a little research I learned that curbside IS available now (and the town even has a waste reduction plan in effect). I am thinking that even though my building has a dumpster they would still allow me to put out my recyclables curbside? I guess I will be calling town hall on Monday!
Ruth
I live in a rural area, so no curbside pick up for us. I actually enjoy going to the recycling center. Everything is clean and sorted there, so the chances of things actually getting recycled is a lot higher. Curbside pick up is convenient, but there’s a higher rate of contamination of recyclables.
I’ve developed a whole system in my house. I know that I’m going to be less likely to want to recycle if things are in my way, so I’ve set them up so they’re sorted and out of my way until I have to drop them off.
Under my sink, I have the follow containers:
1) Metal and plastic recycling (cans, #1 and #2 plastics, when the bucket is full, I empty them into my 32 gallon container in the barn)
2) Compost
3) Plastic bags (I don’t buy plastic bags or get plastic grocery bags myself, but there’s inevitably some stray plastic bags that make it my way, so I recycle them at the grocery store drop off when go to town. The plastic bubble packaging from Amazon boxes is also recyclable)
4) #5 plastic recycling (I have to mail them or find a drop spot, I recycle them through Preserve)
We have a couple of small garbage cans in our house. (unlined)
In the barn:
1) Large blue garbage can with a recycling symbol, where our paper recycling goes
2) Large black garbage can for metal, plastic, and electronic recycling
3) Container for egg cartons (I return them to the farmer for reuse)
4) Container for TerraCycle items (I recycle toothbrush waste and granola/energy bar wrappers through them)
5) Cardboard box for glass recycling. (Our recycling center doesn’t take glass, so I reuse most glass jars and the ones I can’t reuse, I take to a friend who lives in town and has glass recycling)
In the car:
1) Sturdy blue recycling bin. Any recyclables from the car can be just dumped in the bin and don’t make a mess. When the bin is full, I will empty the items into the designated bins elsewhere.
2) Container with re-purposed jars. I freeze stuff in them, buy bulk in them, store bulk in them, store stuff in the fridge with them etc. I keep them in the car, so that if I happen upon a bulk store, I already have containers on hand and can stock up!
3) Hanging reusable trash bag. Mine is a huge wet bag that I used for cloth diapers when the kiddos were smaller.
Having a system where the stuff doesn’t continually get in my way, makes it so much easier to recycle. Since we don’t have curbside recycling, being organized really helps.
It sounds like a lot of categories to sort into, but it’s nice to have a precise spot to put each item and enough storage space for them until I drop them off while I’m doing errands. It’s also so much easier than dealing with multiple stinky huge bags of trash per week and worrying about possums tearing into them and dumping the contents on our porch. Trash bags is an item that I’ve been able to permanently cross off my list and I enjoy not having that monthly expense.
Erin
Thank you so much for sharing! These are awesome tips!