Do you recycle at home?

[gizmo42]

Thats good to see people are doing the right thing

[sgluckadoo]

I wish my neck of the woods offered recycling services.

[bertico10]

Yes we do recycle, but it a shame to see other people in the building don't do the same.

[jkhanson]

Yes we do.

We have containers supplied by our City.

One for newspaper and Cardboard.

One for cans, plastic, and glass.

Once a week, the City picks up our Recyclables curbside.  This service makes it very easy to recycle.

I keep aluminum cans separate and take them in for cash.

[Gomer3334]

We absolutely recycle at home, mainly plastics, glass and paper.  We are trying to teach our little one's how to keep the environment safe.

[queenofnines]

I barely do because the bin our neighborhood supplies for recyclables is really tiny.  When I lived in England, we had full-size cans for BOTH trash and recyclables.  They would alternate which week it was to pick up the junk.  Here all I can manage to fit in our recycle bin is a few beer bottles and pizza boxes.  The rest goes in the trash!  It really makes no sense why my neighborhood recycling program is so inadequate.

[mattymatt79]

Nope.

Recycling if you actually look on it with the energy used to transport it becomes a moot point. The only materials that can actually be recycled for a gain is aluminum. The amount of energy needed to recycle glass is far more than what is needed for creation of the new one.

While a blue bin out front makes us feel we’re helping the planet, recycling most household materials has either minimal environmental impact, or even a negative one. Homeowners dutifully put out their glass, plastic, steel and aluminum packaging. But the only really valuable item, Mr. Porter says, is the metal. That sounds like an economic assessment, but it’s a key environmental measure: resources to make metal are at a premium, and production is energy intensive. Recycling metal pays because it saves on limited resources and energy — in other words, it’s better for the environment. The trouble is that in the typical North American city’s solid waste stream (including trash and recyclables) aluminum and steel generally account for just 2% by weight. Glass sent to recycling facilities is heavier, making up 3 to 5% of typical city waste by weight. But although it demands more energy, there isn’t much use for it.

All the glass collected this year by Calgary’s new program ended up at the East Calgary Landfill, where it is piling up for want of a buyer. “It’s a product that there just isn’t any demand for,” Bill Stitt, general manager of Metro Waste Paper Recovery Inc., the city’s recycling contractor, told a local paper. Edmonton is stockpiling, too, as are a number of other Canadian cities. The price of sand is simply too cheap, and the impracticality of reusing bottles of varying quality and colour is too big a headache to make it marketable.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2305057

It goes even more into plastic and glass, but makes some very valid points, especially with regards to glass and the amount of energy used to break it down and reuse it.

Recycling is a manufacturing process, so it has environmental impacts. An EPA study found more toxic materials in recycling paper processes than in virgin paper manufacturing. And, as one expert puts it, adding curbside recycling is “like moving from once-a-week garbage collection to twice a week.” That means more trucks, with their extra air pollution.

[Oryon20]

Here all I can manage to fit in our recycle bin is a few beer bottles and pizza boxes.

The pizza boxes might just end up being better served in the trash, anyway. If there is food or grease still on it, it will probably ruin the entire batch of cardboard when getting recycled at the facility.  Very few facilities yet exist which can process paper and cardboard with contaminents.  We were told by our program to be aware of this.

Here's a link with some more info: http://earth911.com/news/2009/03/02/the-pizza-box-mystery/

[heartofphila]

I thought it was manditory to recycle

[yaayme]

Absolutely. It's kinda fun too and I have less garbage.

[ktheodos]

yep! so simple

[bschumacher]

I recycle aluminum, plastic, glass, and paper. To do otherwise is irresponsible.

[mrisha]

I recycle everyday, have been doing so for about a year.  I hate it when people are too lazy to recycle when the recycle bins are provided to them.

[Lusie]

What I would do is go to the store and get a plastic bin store all the paper u want to recycle and then either call your local sanitation dept and ask them if there is a specific truck that picks up just paper or does the normal recycling guys do it.

I live in a really small town lol I know I could save the paper and take to the city when I go but I only go like twice a year lol

[lucky382001]

honestly, i recycle without even knowing it...
i don't consciously think to recycle at home, nor really
even do it for the environment (i'm not a litter bug, don't
get me wrong!)

but yes, i definitely recycle plastic grocery bags and use
them for trash liners. i always recycle tissue paper/gift bags,
too.

i love goodwill/thrift stores, so i suppose that's a form of
recycling too!

You are right! Reusing items is definitely a good way to recycle. We recycle cans.bottles.paper ...etc and have a compost bin for our garden.