Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

Ok, so this is a slogan we hear over and over again. Our family decided to take a proactive stance on the challenge of helping the environment. If something is not being used, we turn it off. We do not waste water while brushing our teeth; we have planted a garden for the first time and we recycle.

You may be saying, so what, recycling is no big deal. We have trained our children to recycle everything and this becomes shall we say . . .messy. so messy in fact that we purchased storage containers to act as recycling bins and placed them in our garage for plastics, paper and aluminum. now thing won't be messy but efficient. Think again. The newspapers and magazines are set on top of the dryer for a week and then, are taken out to the bin in the garage. Plastics, cardboard and pop cans are left on the counter until someone takes them to the proper bin in the garage-this job usually falls to me. I have the recyclable bags for grocery shopping and the list goes on.

The clutter from recycling is now in the garage no matter how organized you think you have made yourself (refer to the "bins") it is nearly impossible to be tidy. We took a months worth of recyclables up to the bins at the Albertson's parking lot and much to my surprise was a sign that read "Do not leave your Cardboard, it ill not be picked up". ARE YOU KIDDING ME! So we had a few large deliveries that came in cardboard boxes and rather than send it to the dump we opted to recycle them only to find out that it would not be taken! Well, I left them anyway. I figure if people are encouraged to recycle and this is where you are told to drop off your stuff then everything should be accepted. My garage will continue to be cluttered but we will continue the three R's at our house - just not recycle cardboard whatever you do.