Apr 07 2009
Do you have to pay for curbside recycling, or is it even offered in your neighborhood?
I live near Atlanta and our trash collection does not offer recycling, and they charge a lot for trash collection. They don’t offer once a month trash collection, so you pay weekly whether you need it or not. We want to recycle as much as possible, and generate very little trash as a result. We even have a compost for organic (no meat) waste which nourishes our garden. We keep bins for aluminum, steel, plastic, glass, paper, cardboard and styrofoam. Styrofoam is hard to recycle but some groceries have bins for egg carton and other grocery type styrofoam containers. Most also offer bins for your plastic grocery bags (better yet, use your own bags for groceries). It’s best to try not to buy anything packed in styrofoam if possible. Every week we take our recyclables to the local recycling center (which is next to the farmer’s market, so we get fresh veggies and other groceries while we’re there, saving on gas and time). You can get cash for some of your recyclables such as aluminum and steel. Or you can donate it to the scouts for their fundraisers. If you do all that, you will generate very little trash for your curbside trash collector. You can save money by encouraging your neighbors to recycle (and save money) and share the cost of weekly trash collection with them. If even just 2 families do that, your cost is cut in half. 3 or more families and the savings really add up. If you have a truck, offer to take your neighbor’s recyclables to the recycling centers in exchange for your share of the trash collection cost.
