Are you still recycling?

[pinkytoe]

Yes. It is all a habit we picked up living in Austin where recycling is ingrained. Here, we use the single stream recycling for an addl $5 a month through our trash company. My neighbors tell me we are wasting our money so they don't recycle. I compost veggie scraps. DH chops up any yard waste and that goes in compost pile too.
On the suggestion of a fellow gardener, I went to the Safeway bakery dept to see if I could buy some empty food-safe buckets for growing plants. I was so surprised to hear that they just throw them away rather than recycle.

[SteveinMN]

Still recycling here.

Much of the recycling is curbside: glass, aluminum, plastics 1-5, paper. They will pick up textiles if bagged separately; that's sold to companies that use the fibers in new products (like home insulation). Still no curbside organic recycling; there are several places around the city where you can drop off organics you've saved up. We put ours (minus meat and dairy) in our compost bin when it's not full or frozen. Other metals are effectively recycled at the curb by guys who drive around and pick up anything that's largely metal (old water heaters, bicycle frames, old plumbing pipe, etc.).

There is a business in town that takes on people with -- umm, interesting -- pasts and gives them a place to live and vocational training; they recycle pretty much anything electronic or associated with electronics (compact disks, cassette tapes, cables, batteries, etc.). Some of it is sold as separated scrap; the good pieces are refurbished and offered for sale at two storefronts they have.

The city has maybe four all-city cleanups each year at which people can bring furniture, construction materials, appliances, tires, bicycles, paper records to be shredded, and hazardous waste. I volunteer at one of them each year so our car full of stuff gets in free.

And there are specialty places. There are a several city sites that take leaves and plants and composts them for free; a few sites also accept branches and brush and chips them for mulch that's available for free. IKEA and Best Buy will take lots of electronics, non-incandescent bulbs, and so on. We have two Habitat for Humanity ReStores. Supermarkets still take plastic grocery bags. Goodwill will, also. Paper bags are no trouble to get rid of; someone always wants those. The company that recycled carpet is no more, though.

The biggest problem is storing the stuff till it can find the right home.

[Rogar]

Not sure if his is relevant but worth checking out?

https://www.litterless.com/where-to-compost/colorado

I appreciate the thought. I checked out the two close to me. My take is that they are talking about 3 or 5 gallon buckets per week with for a modest charge. I compost my kitchen waste but my yard debris is large sticks and branches and leaves mixed with large sticks and branches. I can fill a handful of 50 gallon containers a couple or few times a year. I might search a little further this year, but have not found anything practical yet or am missing something.

[Alan]

I appreciate the thought. I checked out the two close to me. My take is that they are talking about 3 or 5 gallon buckets per week with for a modest charge. I compost my kitchen waste but my yard debris is large sticks and branches and leaves mixed with large sticks and branches. I can fill a handful of 50 gallon containers a couple or few times a year. I might search a little further this year, but have not found anything practical yet or am missing something.

My fire pit loves large sticks and branches and leaves mixed with large sticks and branches.

[Rogar]

My fire pit loves large sticks and branches and leaves mixed with large sticks and branches.

It's a thought. I'd trade a few 55 gallon containers of sticks and leaves for beer and BBQ. Or I could get a fire pit. I actually cut up anything bigger than an inch or so diameter for the wood stove and some of it needs to season.

I hate to date myself, but have some vague childhood memories of having an alley and everyone in the block had cement or brick what we called ash pits along the alleyway. A few houses just had barrels. Just about any household or yard refuse that would burn went into the ash pit and every few weeks or month or so the trash truck would come down the alley and clean out all burned trash from the ash pits up and down the alley. There were always things that wouldn't burn completely. It was sort of a big deal when the city passed burning restrictions. I suppose that was common in other places, too.

[catherine]

But for that criticism to be valid you'd have to compare those negatives to the environmental and human costs of mining raw aluminum ore, transporting it, turning it into aluminum, disposing of the waste from the smelting process, restoring (or not restoring) the land where the ore was mined, the conditions under which the miners and truckers and smelter employees work, and the impact on local populations of being forced off of their farms so the aluminum company can turn that agricultural land into a strip mine....

And then there's the problem of where we're going to find enough space to create more landfills, unless you intend to load all the garbage on freight trains and dump it into the abandoned strip mines...

Classic Song: "What will we do when there's nothing left to do with the garbage?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpZ5AWIlaTw

That's what I mean. There are two not-so great options: to EITHER exploit the land and people in order to create and then to recycle aluminum cans (also an exploitative process) OR just throw them in a landfill. The third option is: don't use aluminum cans.

[early morning]

The third option is: don't use aluminum cans.

I try to use the DO NOT USE option for things in general but it is HARD, and for some things, just not possible for us. So we do curbside recycling and compost organic household waste. Larger yard waste (sticks too small to give away as firewood, hedge trimming, dried out Christmas tree, etc) just goes into the field, where it will eventually break down. I compost a lot of paper, and use it for mulch. I cancelled all physical papers years ago, and try to go paperless for most other things. I have a weakness for magazines (I currently get three plus hand-me-downs) but do pass most of them on or recycle them. Cat litter is wood pellets and is also dumped in the field. I don't know WHAT we'll do if we ever move to a field-less property!!

[GeorgeParker]

That's what I mean. There are two not-so great options: to EITHER exploit the land and people in order to create and then to recycle aluminum cans (also an exploitative process) OR just throw them in a landfill. The third option is: don't use aluminum cans.

Unless you're willing to totally not use the product that comes in those aluminum cans, you're just avoiding the cans in favor of a different kind of packaging which may be even worse environmentally.

That's the big problem with people who loudly proclaim that {fill in the blank} is bad. Often the alternatives are just as bad or worse. So unless you have a complete balanced picture of all the pros and cons of every alternative, you're just making a WAG that whatever you read about {fill in the blank} means it really is worst than the alternatives. And I don't know anyone who's smart enough to know everything about everything. That includes me.

[Yppej]

You can buy a Soda Stream machine and make your own soda.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Unless you're willing totally not use the product that comes in those aluminum cans, you're just avoiding the cans in favor of a different kind of packaging which may be even worse environmentally.

may, it's amazing we can't get good information on this isn't it? Of course if you have no good information then GIGO. My gut tells me glass has to have less impact than plastic and it's non toxic to dispose of etc., and likely than aluminum as well. So it is heavier to transport, but really it's non-toxic nature has to be worth a lot. I don't drink soda, the only aluminum cans I have contain alcohol, and no I'm not making my own for the drink I have every few months or something.