CURBSIDE RECYCLING. IS IT WORTH IT??

Curbside recycling has made major news lately with many municipalities questioning their decades old decision to give disposable items an after life.  From vegetable cans to soda bottles, we believed that we were helping the planet by "recycling" items from the list provided by our city waste collector, easily imaging a new plastic bottle, park bench, or some other such reuse rising from the remnants of our "one and done" lifestyles.  We've embraced the idea of recycling so much that we've increased our overall garbage waste from around 2 1/2 lbs per person, per day in the 60's to approximately 4.5 lbs per person today.  

Friends, I have some good news and some bad news.  First the bad news.  There isn't a recycling fairy who magically turns our trash into playgrounds and soda bottles.  Recycling household waste (IF it's being recycled, and not sent to a landfill) usually includes a heavy carbon footprint. When you factor in transportation to a sorting facility, the processing required to break down the original materials, the manufacturing of the new products and the release of greenhouse gasses, chemicals and toxic metals into the environment, it's not a perfect system.

Now, the good news!!  It's easy to be a recycling fairy (or King, Queen, etc.).  Folks, this is one of the main reasons that I, a self proclaimed tree hugger and waste Guru, started this blog.  It was about having responsibility for my environmental footprint.  It's about seeing potential in home waste instead of mindlessly tossing everything into the trash.  It's about protecting the earth, home to every living creature on the planet. It's about reusing what I have, refusing (or reducing) the purchase of new items, and instead, recycling and upscycling items on hand, discarding less to landfills AND recycling centers, and ultimately, lowering my carbon and environmental footprint in the process.   

Any internet search will give you dozens of ways to reuse your waste, and I urge you to look through as much of it as possible for interesting ideas to repurpose, reuse and upcycle your waste.  It's truly amazing what we can do when we think outside of the box.

In the meantime, I'm going to be spending the next few weeks giving you my daily list of 101 frequently used (and mostly trashed) items that we all come in contact with on a daily basis with easy to do ideas and projects to reuse, recycle, repurpose and rot (compost) so you don't have to decide whether to put things in the black, blue or green container.

Toilet paper roll seed starting pots

Newspaper seed tape

What's best is that none of my ideas include sending stuff to a landfill!!

Please don't stop your curbside recycling unless asked to do so by your city.  

Many items, such as paper, glass bottles and aluminum cans are fairly easy to recycle, saving natural resources and lessening the amount of GHG (greenhouse gasses) entering the environment.  Remember:  Sending waste to a landfill should always be our LAST option!

Be well, be sustainable and happy Spring gardening!!