Recycling is a vicious cycle; at least here in the heart of Indianapolis.
Our trash gets picked up on Friday mornings and there's ZERO bill to pay for it. I am sure it is tacked on the water and sewer bill but I've scoured that thing and have found zilch on trash. We just don't pay for it in the city limits, yall.
But to recycle. Yeah, we have to PAY for that. We have to pay for the container to put in recyclables and pay for someone to pick it up weekly or monthly. What? I'm helping the Earth and yall are going to make me pay? No bueno! I'm just to cheap frugal for that. Do you think we recycle?
Yep. We do. There are currently two bags of aluminum cans and three containers of plastic water bottles along with newspaper and glass to dump off at the recycling center. Aluminum goes to the place that PAYS us to recycle. All the rest go to the land of grocery store recycling; except that they've recently removed the ones we were taking the recycling too; hence the multiple bags piling up.
(That is this weekend's CHORE now that running isn't mandatory on Saturdays!)
Cardboard, I love to loathe you, but you DO make it easy to bring home things in. How would pizza delivery work without cardboard? Or shipping from Amazon? It just makes sense. Yet, Indianapolis loves to not recycle you. We still have moving boxes stored in the garage (cuz let's face it we WILL move again) and there isn't a place locally to recycle.
My friends have called me hippie. We recycle, we grow a garden big enough to can vegetables, sauces, and salsas for the upcoming year, we use reusable bags, I cherish Farmer's Markets,We compost, we shop at Thrift Stores (the ones here really DO rock!), and I refuse to pay full price on just about everything. Yet, there are things lurking in my house that off-set my "crunchy-Earth-friendly" ways.
Ziploc. Paper towels. Napkins. Straws. All things I can eco-replace except straws because there is NOTHING going to get a glass or aluminum straw cleaned. (You might as well drink toilet water!) We already don't own a lot of plastic containers because plastic isn't natural, who knows what chemicals are leaking into my food by storing it in them! We use A LOT of ceramic and glass food storage containers (which is IRONIC because I did sell Tupperware at one time!). Also, we use a lot of dish towels. Paper towels and napkins are used sparingly. We have cloth napkins. We need to use them more, but then the cost of water, soap to wash them defeats the purpose so I feel better by purchasing the recycled napkins :)
Can you tell that this week's chapter of 7 is on Waste?
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