hello lovely curbside recycling can.

As we were in bed this morning having our pre-day cuddle session we heard what sounded like our garbage truck outside, but different. We looked through our bedroom window and saw a rented moving truck dropping off brand spanking new recycling containers! Our twice a week garbage pick up (which I think is excessive) will be reduced to one week so that the new curbside recyling pick-up can have the other day.
Perhaps I am a recycling dork, but this totally made my day.
more to come,

elle

I turned my empty shaving lotion bottle upside down today to check for the little symbol that indicates it’s recyclability. I got a kick out of the text reading, “RECYCLE. ALWAYS.”, and then in french, “RECYCLEZ-MOI! S.V.P. (or, recycle me, please.)”

Pensacola recently initiated a curbside recycling program and I was all excited to sign up and get a 44 lb. container to put out my recyclables with my trash every week- only to be called by the county a few hours later to let me know that my home is located within the city of Pensacola (by two blocks!) and thus, not included in the program. The City of Pensacola, however, recently announced that it would be researching the funding and implementation of such a program.

Didn’t my teeny rural town in Washington State offer curbside recycling when I was in elementary school? I seem to remember singing aliens visiting our gym to let us know that our planet would be in peril should we decide to place the aluminum cans in the round trash can rather than the square blue one for recyclables. That was 20 years ago…

While Pensacola is catching up with the rest of the world (in some things- I still have neighbors that think it’s improper to shake my hand because I’m female), I’m going to refine what it is that I do so that I can be more like this guy.

Things I can continue doing:
thrift shopping, reusing grocery bags, upcycling grocery bags, shipping my store orders in reused/recycled materials, riding my bike instead of driving the car, donating unused items rather than throwing them away, freecycling, purchasing recycled…… goodness, there must be more….

Things to start doing:
canning, composting, gardening, more aggressive recycling (this means taking it to the drop off too!), using cloth or gdiapers when the time comes (soon!), purchasing more food items in bulk/dried states, using the fabulous totes I have for shopping (rather than plastic grocery bags)…

More about this in cool places:

Annie Leonard explains the cycle of consumption- where stuff comes from and where it goes at The Story of Stuff.
Artist/designer/generally-rad-person Kate Bingham-Burt draws her daily purchases over at Obsessive Consumption.
And, Sustainable Dave, who I saw this morning on Good Morning America, saved his trash for an entire year. That’s my kind of guy.

xo
elle