Do I Recycle? But, Of Course, I Live in Seattle

In case there is any confusion, Washington State is green in more ways than one. But I must admit that it wasn't until this year that I started to take recycling more seriously.

It all started with a personal rule of life I had to develop for my Fuller Masters program. [A rule of life is a set of disciplines to aid in personal transformation.] One discipline I included was care of the Earth: to become more educated about recycling and recycle even more. 

My New, Big Blue Recycling Container

Not long after I put this rule into practice, I received a pamphlet from my community saying that they were switching out our smaller recycling bins for a larger, blue recycling container on wheels. We no longer had to separate our recyclables; it all goes together now.

My new container happened to be twice the size of my 32-gallon trash can. My opportunity to "become more educated about recycling" had arrived. I had to figure out how I was going to fill this new addition to the family up faster than 4X/year.

For several years, I've had two trash cans in my kitchen-one for trash and the other for recyclables. Now that I'm "educated," I can easily fill up my recyclables can twice as fast as my trash can.

Another recycling bonus: The more you recycle, the bigger credit you receive, and the smaller your bill gets. We all win.

Seattle's New Initiative

On Tuesday, a Seattle Times article came out: Food-trash recycling at homes to be required by Seattle in '09. All single-family homes will be required to sign up for table scrap recycling by 2009. I'm telling you - we are a lean, green, recycling machine around here!

Other Ways I Recycle

Clothes. I've always been big on recycling clothes. Generally, I have the same (small) amount of clothes because if I buy 5 new pieces, then I pick out 5 "old" pieces to give to Goodwill. It keeps my closet under control and it allows me to pass on some cool pieces to others.

Books. I also have LOTS of books. As part of my new rule, I went through all my books recently, and pulled out over 100 books to donate to the Friends of Libraries U.S.A. organization. They will then be able to sell them at their biannual book sale.

So yes, I do recycle - and I am recycling more. How about you?

Comments

[Susan]

I'm dipping my toes into unfamiliar territory commenting on a blog, but Tamara likes to push me to break out of my shell from time to time. She asked that I share the following personal recycling story with her readers.

I recently spent time with my sister-in-law at her home in a Los Banos, CA. It's a little over an hours drive from San Jose. It's not a big city by any means, but they do have a Wal-Mart, Lowes, Home Depot, etc.

Over the course of a week, my family, her family, and visiting cousins created quite a lot of garbage. At times we took out the trash three times in a single day. I discovered early on that she doesn't recycle. It's not by choice, recycling isn't offered in Los Banos.

Imagine my four year-old son's confusion, when he asked where he was supposed to put the plastic water bottle and I said in the garbage! At home, he knows plastics, glass, and milk containers go in the small blue bin and paper, cereal boxes, etc. in the big blue can. He has never seen me toss plastic in the garbage, let alone have me tell him to do that.

I tried to explain to him that they don't recycle everywhere, but it's challenging for me to explain why that's the case when I don't quite understand it.

[Tamara]

Thanks Susan. Recycling is such a part of our life here in Washington that it's hard to think of life without recycling. I like how you have your kids already trained up.