New recycler belt

Once you get started with recycling you soon get used to doing it and it becomes automatic.

My family manage 4 recycling bins without any problems and it makes a huge difference to the amount of general waste we create.

I personally don’t mind sorting. I actually prefer it in the right situations. There is less cross-contamination this way, for one. The problem with the system in my dorm was that it was so detailed that recyclable items would be left out. For example, we had bins for printer paper, magazines, and newspapers. Other random bits of paper? People would just throw those away because they didn’t fall under any other category. I would sort it based on the type of paper, but many people wouldn’t. That’s just an example, but I think a more general paper bin or better descriptions would have made the program a lot better. Now that system was a little extreme for sorting– I’ve never been anywhere else with bins that were that specific.

Now in the area I live in now already does single-stream recycling. We have the sorting equipment already. It’s also a conservative area. A law that requires that many bins would never pass–at least not now. So at this point in time, in this area, I would advocate the law that has the best chance of passing.

Oddly enough, we used to have a system that used separate bins. I remember when one of my chores was to take the recycling out and sort it! (It always collected on our kitchen counter for some reason.)

I agree that it becomes automatic. I know I could do more, but I don’t have the patience or strength to do all of what they’d like us to do and recycle.

It is so much easier now because most shops have recycling points for batteries and there are lots of places to recycle printer cartridges, phones, and all sorts of other things.

All these things add up to making a big difference in terms of recycling.

I have never seen a battery recycling spot in a store or anything, but I do know that I can take my printer cartridges to the place where I got my computer and get a discount on a replacement.

My idea of battery recycling used to be saving them and giving them to my dad to take care of. I recently discovered that the Whole Foods near me has a bin for battery recycling. The 1800Recycling website is another good resource for looking up places.

Here places that sell batteries provide recycling points so there are loads of places to get rid of them. I have started to drop mine off at toys r us because it is easy to park and it is on my usual route to/from work.