recycle it

i have made it my unofficial new year's resolution to recycle more. i've been checking pretty much all packaging that goes through my kitchen to see if it's recyclable, and tossing more stuff into my recycle bin than in the trash bin (from the kitchen anyway). it's been really fun to cook and see if i can make a whole mean without throwing anything into the trash can. Surprisingly, that happens more often than not... and when I do throw things into the trash can, they're very small, and very few. that's pretty cool!

I've even put this cute little bucket on the counter (which i found at Target for the low price of $1) in the kitchen for things that can go into the yard waste bin. We got this little magnet booklet sometime last year that i stuck on the fridge, and it shows what you should do with each kind of waste (it's surprisingly comprehensive). i've been filling that little bucket up almost as quickly as I can empty it into the yard waste bin. the cut off ends of veggies go in there, egg shells go in there, I'm trying very hard to get Mike to put the coffee grounds in there (rather than down the garbage disposal, which i've always found to be kind of strange to begin with)... a couple of weeks ago i discovered that bread can go in there, so the ends of the loaf that nobody wants to eat, and then they go bad... well, those go in there now!

And today I discovered one more thing i can throw in the yard waste bin! you can throw meat in there!... so now every time i trim the fat off of my meat... guess where that's going?

i like to imagine that the city of Kent has a nice, beautiful compost pile somewhere, and I'm enriching it every time i put something in that little bucket instead of in the trash. I'm scared to research it to find out for sure, in case i'm wrong. i like thinking i'm making compost. I have the stuff sitting in my side yard to build my own compost bin... and some day i swear i will get around to actually putting it together and make my own black gold and put it all right back into my own garden! but until then, at least i'm not contributing as much to the city dump! gross!

between our own obnoxious amount of actual yard waste, and the stuff coming out of the kitchen, our yard waste bin never stays empty long. I've considered calling them up to see if they'd give me a 2nd one. Sometimes we actually have to "store" our yard waste in the side yard until the yard waste bin is empty again, so it will all fit. I suppose I could have worse problems. (and at least that's not the case with our garbage can!)... maybe if I can get Mike on board w/ my recycling habit, we could call them up and see if we could get a smaller trash can? that would be nice! i love that shrinking carbon footprint!

that's not to say that i have this recycling thing perfected. I'm just talking about the kitchen, but you've got to start somewhere, right? next up i want to put an extra "trash" can in the bathrooms, so i can recycle those cardboard toilet paper rolls when they're empty too.

Morpheus is a good helper. he likes to shred up the cardboard for me, so it fits better in the recycling bin. he thinks that task is better than stuffed toys!