Getting serious about recycling
16 May 2012
We make too much trash, people.
The kitchen in our last apartment was tiny. Seriously tiny, just under 4′ x 8′. One of my garden beds was larger than the floor of my last kitchen. We had to move the garbage can back and forth to open the dishwasher or open the bottom cabinet with the tupperware bin. I pulled out trash to be recycled, gave it a good rinse, and put it on the floor next to the garbage can for the kids to take out at the same time as the trash, but my husband loathed this practice. We tried tying a bag to the pantry doorknob for recycling, carving out room for a paper bag under the sink, a paper grocery bag next to the trash can… nothing worked well enough to become a habit.
My new kitchen, on the other hand, is blissfully huge. There is plenty of room for garbage cans and recycle bins (and indoor worm composting bins, but that’s going to take some convincing) but I just can’t seem to get my husband and kids to care. I need to find a system that’s easy and neat.
Here are some ideas I’ve seen:
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- Plastic bins from Target: $85.79 for 6
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- And then there’s this: Rev-A-Shelf Quad Bottom Mount Aluminum Recycle Centers for $497. Yeah.
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- I like this one a lot. Knape and Vogt 4 Bin Recycling Center $136.88
So, my green readers, how do you keep your recycling tidy?
May 23, 2013 at 3:51 pm 
May 17, 2012 @ 08:30:45
We’ve got a wooden fruit basket (the free ones from Ward’s) under the sink for cans and bottles. It is an easy step to rinse, open the cabinet in front of your knees, and toss in the recyclable! There’s also a slim box to hold small, broken-down pasteboard boxes next to the basket.
Newspapers and larger paper items go into the box in my bedroom – strange location, until you realize I read the newspaper in bed and can just toss it into the box!
May 17, 2012 @ 11:09:52
Thank you! I like the idea of using recycled materials for recyclables instead of buying new plastic things that eventually have to be, themselves, recycled.
May 21, 2012 @ 15:50:28
We tried recycling. We saved lots of cans in a box or a bag. And it sat there in the kitchen. And sat there. And sat there. Because, lazy people that we were, the recycling trash bin was on the far side of the house and we just never got around to moving it to the functional side of the house.
Sigh.
Now we don’t have nearly as many cans, as we quit drinking soda.
However, we have started a compost bin, and are actually using it for our food scraps. Once we turn that into a reasonable habit, we may try to get back into a recycling mode, especially now that we have gotten around to putting the recycling bin on the side of the house with the door we use. Of course, I’ll have to keep up with when the recycling pick up is, but that is do-able.
Theoretically, at least.