Don't worry - recycle!

I’m a 70’s kid, born late in the Baby Boom (’58), raised during the energy crisis of the 70’s and the back to earth movement. That fervent need to protect the environment and our resources kind of faded away during the 80’s and 90’s, but now Boomers are faced with another energy crisis, overflowing landfills, and plastic clogging our seas and killing sea life.

In the old days, I used to make fun of my parents' reuse of items until they were used up. Mom used butter tubs and yogurt cups to store food in the refrigerator, Dad skulked around to find things "perfectly good" to fix up and sell. I thought they were hilarious, until I started asking Mom if she had any pie pans I could borrow to make multiple pies for a bake sale, or asking Dad if we could borrow his "extra" lawn mower while ours was in the shop.

So here we are, in the double aughts, and our landfills are filling up, the costs of petrol products are shooting up, and we are all a little overwhelmed with how our life is changing. A few months ago, as I was paying the City of Fayetteville water/sewer/garbage pick up bill, I noticed that there was writing on the back of the bill. I found it included information on the City of Fayetteville's Recycling program. You can read about it online at: http://fayetteville.govoffice.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={ECE690AB-CAD5-4A44-B292-2539D4BFC499} down at the bottom of the page there are links to the Recycling list. Long link, I know, but you can also find it by going to the City of Fayetteville homepage (http://fayetteville.govoffice.com) and click on City Departments, then Public Services, then Solid Waste. I'll try attaching it at the bottom of this article, too.

I remember when they first dumped those recycle bins off back in the 90’s and tacked on the Recycle charge to the water bill. At first, I was all gung-ho, but then got irritated that they didn’t accept glass or magazines or phonebooks (I’m lazy – you have always been able to take them to the dump off First Manassas Mile Road where they have drop-off recycling bins). Then one day they hauled off my wicker basket of newspapers, and I was just done.

But things have changed for me in the past year. Becoming a grandma opens your eyes to what children see… and I saw a lot of garbage that will never decompose in a dump. Did you know that plastic grocery bag takes 1,000 years to decompose? So when I found that list of recyclables on the back of the Water Bill, I decided I was going to try to save some earth for my grandbaby. A recycler was reborn. I posted the recyclable list on the side of the refrigerator and read the riot act to anybody in the house who would listen. Anything on the list didn’t go in the garbage – it went into the recyclable bin. Junk mail? Recycling bin. Old magazines? Recycling bin. Those yellow and white pages that you never use, but get duplicates every year? Recycling bin. Old homework, reports, or printer paper? Recycling bin.

Within a week, we had more recycle than we had garbage. I kid you not. We tried putting the extra recycle beside the bins, but they didn’t pick it up. We tried buying a new garbage can just for recyclables, and even put reflectable letters on it reading RECYCLABLES, but they wouldn’t pick it up. So I called our dedicated public servant, Don Easterbrook, Director of Public Works for Fayetteville, and he explained t hey only picked up what was in the bins. He told me to drop by city hall and ask for more bins. So I did. Next week, I had 3 more bins. We filled them up – pretty much every week.

So, I went pretty crazy. Decided to stop dumping vegetable peelings in the garbage can, where they will never decompose. Found a website on how to make a cheap composter bin out of a plastic garbage can (http://organicgardening.about.com/od/compost/a/cancomposter.htm). Coffee grounds, egg shells (rinsed), vegetable peelings, rinds… just about anything left from vegetables, goes in the can. We throw some pine straw or bark on top, wet it down, and once a week, bungee it and kick it around the back yard. Here’s the weirdest thing – it doesn’t stink! Just never ever put meat or dairy scraps into it. You’ll have all sorts of problems, from an awful smell to rodents visiting. Otherwise, black gold!

Instead of buying the bags of mulch at the garden center, we go out to the Fayette County Public Works department at 115 McDonough Road. You’ll see a huge pile of mulch, yours for the taking. Whatever you can load into your vehicle, it’s free. Bring a shovel – you have to do the dirty work yourself.

I’m still trying to convince the tall guy to take the tote bags to the grocery store and stop bringing home wads of plastic grocery bags, but we’ll make our dint one way or another. When he realized he could tote more groceries in a recycled tote than in 5 grocery bags, he starts to come around.

Don’t live in Fayetteville? You can still recycle by checking with your city’s public works department. If there is a landfill nearby, they most likely have recycle stations for whatever you have. At the Fayette Landfill, there are stations for just about everything, from magazines to metals.

So stop worrying about whether they are going to drill off the coast or whether you can afford gas to go to work. Each ton of recycled plastics saves 1.6 TONS of crude oil. So stop whining -- do something about it – recycle!

Resources you can use:

Old computers, printers, cell phones, telephones, and other office equipment http://www.gatfl.org/reboot/default.htm

More information on recycling at home, although City of Fayetteville does recycle things that they say aren’t recyclable (such as Plastic #5) http://www.eartheasy.com/live_recycling.htm

Cool facts on recycling: http://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/Benefits_of_Recycling

Need to know where to recycle something? Use www.earth911.org, plug in what you want to recycle (used motor oil? Paint? ) and put in your zip. Viola!