Years ago, I went with a very environmentally conscious friend to the recycling center so she could drop some things off. We came away with a car load of stuff that I found from the recycling center that I could use. My friend laughed at me because she said I was the only one she had ever known who takes things home from the recycling center instead of dropping things off.
I know things have changed and more people are aware you can get things from recycling centers, usually for free, but this post is for those of you who might not know that yet.
I don’t believe the environment needs saving but I do believe in saving money and using what you have which definitely can’t hurt the environment. In one sense, I don’t believe in recycling centers. I can just see the e-mails flying now, but let me explain.
If you are being careful with your spending, reusing what you have and taking care of what you do have, there should be very little need of taking anything to a recycling center.
I use all of my paint, my cleaning supplies and other things and stretch everything as far as I can so I don’t have to buy more. Boxes, papers and packaging all get reused at my home and since I don’t buy that much stuff, I don’t ever have an overload of those things.
I don’t have to worry about recycling my plastic bottles because I buy almost nothing that comes in plastic bottles and I drink tap water. I don’t have magazine subscriptions and I share the magazines that I do happen to get, giving them to someone else to use.
Personally I think recycling centers can give people an excuse to still spend, buy and waste and, because we tell ourselves we are recycling these things, we don’t need to feel guilty about continuing to buy things we don’t need. You are still creating trash. Yes, I know much of it is trash that will be reused but why not reuse it in your own home or with someone you know, rather than sending it somewhere where it will take energy to convert it to something else? To me that is the truest form of not wasting and using our resources wisely.
To give you an idea of what you can get at a recycling center, here is a note from Tawra:
I went to the Hazardous Waste Facility to see if they had anything to remove paint that dripped on the driveway last fall when I was painting the house.
At first I didn’t find anything. Then I asked if they had something for this task. While we were looking, they brought out a cart with a bunch of new stuff on it. Here’s what I got:
1 gallon of hand soap
1 gallon of dish soap
3 gallons of mineral spirits (for the driveway)
3 gallons of laundry booster
1 gallon of car window washer with de-icer
2 bottles of stop leak for bike tires (which I just bought at Walmart and will be returning! LOL)
1 bottle of Lysol cleaner
1 gallon of deck stain
I figured I got at least $80, maybe more, worth of things we can use around the house for free! Yeah!! That was worth the trip!
-Tawra
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Photo By: Derrick Coetzee
Cool! One time I went to the recycle center with our recyclables and in the bin, there were three years worth of cooking magazines! After asking, I grabbed them and brought them home to try the recipes. So much fun and for free!
If you ever are in a college dorm at the end of semester you will find amazing things, When I packed up my daughter one summer, we found all kinds of great things just left behind, (particularly by the students going home to other countries). We took loads of NEW shampoo, soap, conditioner, computer books still sealed, all kinds of notebooks and paper (unused)etc. It was quite an eye opener for me about what get’s wasted!
YOu would think that a homeless shelter would have snapped that stuff up!
When I was a kid we went to the dump to trash things on my sister’s brithday. We found an excellent heavy metal dump truck and loader. My parents bought Dottie other gifts.
When I was a kid the dump had wet garbage and dry garbage they opened the dry side on Sat. and people could go in and see what was there.
You would find bikes with a flat tire or no chain or a broken spoke. nothing else wrong with them.
Brand new clothes thrown out by the stores in town at the end of the season.
I guess you could say that was our recycling centre. Nothing organized just a dump.
One year my brother was working at the metropolitan store and they were throwing away about 200 sewing patterns. All sorts two problems for us with his recycling. Nobody liked sewing all that much and they took the covers to send back to the company for their rebate.
3 weeks of work to match them up and put them into a box which I don’t think ever got opened but we kept them because it seems like a rule. Once it is in the house it stays. My father never threw anything out.
One good deal he got was about 200 wire hangers. Nobody can ever have too many wire hangers as they have so many uses.
My dad used to go to the dump every Saturday to take their trash and always came home with something that he could fix and use. Most often it was those lawn chairs with the plastic webbing. He could redo a chair in about an hour and he must have had twenty or so in his shed. But when all the family came by for a cook-out, he brought out his chairs and no one even knew they weren’t “bought”. But he couldn’t keep his secret so everyone knew dad had made a deal. He also repaired old bikes and toys and gave them to the kids in his neighborhood. He did most of this long after we were grown and he was retired. I was so proud of him for his recycling efforts.
On another note, he also had a large garden and the produce he grew, he shared with all his neighbors. He planted way more than he and his wife could eat but he just enjoyed his garden. Funny, he never did help my mom with her garden when we were little but after he retired, he loved it and even learned to make chow-chow and bread and butter pickles. Thanks for letting me share this dad story. He’s been gone about 11 years now and telling this reminded me how much I miss him.
Gosh I wish we were allowed to pick up stuff from the recyceables at the dump. But the rule is once it’s through the gates you can’t touch it. Even if someone has something on their truck you want and they offer it is off limits.
I do a lot of curb shopping and now I hear that within the city limits it is now forbiden to pick up anything that has fabric on it.
I do belong to Freecycle and that is very helpful. The more people see you give the more likely people are to offer something when you put a want ad up.
When people ask me what my decorating style is I say “Early Salvation Army”
yeah, here they call it stealing. But before it got rediculous, my brother put together a motorbike, we made up numerous bicycles and even found the odd suitcase full of perfectly good clothes. My favourite find was a bag of old (and some ancient)coins, some dating to Roman times.
In my area once it is in the recycle bin it is off limits. If caught removing something from a bin the police will issue you a ticket. Seems counter productive to the recycling issue. I mean if someone can use it isn’t that better than putting it the crusher??
I would think so but some people just don’t have any common sense. If it’s that valuable that you don’t want someone taking it then shred it or put it in the burn pile!
I totally agree. Most things shouldn’t go to the recycling center but if you do have them then you should send them there. A friend of mine has curbside recycling but refuses to recycle. It is to much work and they add a fee to your bill if you recycle so she had them pick up the trash can and take the fee off her bill. It is to much work for her (she is 88 but didn’t tell them her 60 year old son lives with her) and she can’t afford it. I don’t have a lot of recycling but I wish I had it curbside.
I am so happy that people are learning how to reduce, reuse and recycle and finding that it is cheaper to do so.
I helped a neighbor “declutter” her office and passed on a big stack of card stock to my sister and Freecycled 4 boxes of canning jars to someone who was thrilled to get them. My neighbor was happy to have the help; people were glad to get some “new” things and I got to be helpful and creative at the same time.
I say: pass it on. The saddest thing is to go to a yard sale and see perfectly lovely clothes in great condition that are hopelessly out of date. Get rid of clothes
when someone will still be happy to wear them.
A few years ago, I discovered that our local library has a stand for magazines that are free to take home. They may be old but the information is usually still good:)
To true Jen. I once found a magazine in the attic of our house from from 1917 and compared it to a new magazine and had to laugh because they talked about almost the exact same thing. Nothing new under the sun.