Why I Hate to Recycle
Now, before my green friends get too mad at me, let me make this perfectly clear:
Okay? We really do.
But, let me tell you why I hate it.
You see, our recycling collection truck comes on Thursday mornings. So early on Thursday mornings that I could probably say Wednesday nights.
So, sometimes I forget to take the recycling to the curb.
Even though my children get up at the crack of dawn, that's still to late to take out the recycling.
And sometimes, WEEKS will go by before I manage to get it to the curb.
On Wednesday around dinnertime, I'll usually remember that hey, the recyling needs to go out.
Technically, I could take it out right then.
But, here's the problem: people walk around our neighborhood in the evenings. Oh yes, lots of after-dinner strollers in my 'hood.
And if my recycling is out at the curb during this time, after WEEKS of not taking the recycling to the curb? Do you know what my neighbors will see?
WEEKS worth of wine and beer(not mine) and Mike's Strawberry Lemonade bottles. WEEKS.
It's a frightening number of bottles.
So, I need to take my recycling out to the cub under the cover of darkness.
Because I'm not really a lush. I just play one ontwitter my blog.
But, let me tell you why I hate it.
You see, our recycling collection truck comes on Thursday mornings. So early on Thursday mornings that I could probably say Wednesday nights.
So, sometimes I forget to take the recycling to the curb.
Even though my children get up at the crack of dawn, that's still to late to take out the recycling.
And sometimes, WEEKS will go by before I manage to get it to the curb.
On Wednesday around dinnertime, I'll usually remember that hey, the recyling needs to go out.
Technically, I could take it out right then.
But, here's the problem: people walk around our neighborhood in the evenings. Oh yes, lots of after-dinner strollers in my 'hood.
And if my recycling is out at the curb during this time, after WEEKS of not taking the recycling to the curb? Do you know what my neighbors will see?
WEEKS worth of wine and beer(not mine) and Mike's Strawberry Lemonade bottles. WEEKS.
It's a frightening number of bottles.
So, I need to take my recycling out to the cub under the cover of darkness.
Because I'm not really a lush. I just play one on
posted by Shell at
7:00 AM
84 Comments:
You should have seen our bins after the recycling truck did not come for 2 weeks--and it was Christmas & New Years. Holy Mackerel--it was rather embarrassing--I think there was at least one bin with just wine bottles.
My Hubby recycles everything. I am to lazy to clean out peanut butter jars, etc. and it drives me absolutely nuts when he leaves stuff soaking in the sink for days. The things we do to be good...
thankful my kids are old enough to do trash and recycle duty (same day here)
we also have the added benefit, that we live on the top of a pretty steep hill, the after-dinner strollers are far and few between for fear that might loose their dinners
We don't have a special recycle pick up.. We have to take ours to the center on our own.. yeah I am that backwoods
I can imagine what our recycling will look like if I don't take it out to the recycling bins in our place (yes we have bins, and collection comes by frequently to collect)as often as I do. My husband drinks a LOT of soda!
I am cracking up!!!! I have the same shame here!! Bud light bottles will fill multiple bins! LOL Not only do I not want my neighbors to call DCF, but I really don't want the boys to see our recycling filled to the brim with beer either. LOL We have no solution. We recycle in all of our bud light glory.
All my real life friends know that I'm a lush too, so they wouldn't even glance twice at the bottles. Our bins are huge with lids too, so they never see what is inside!
I asked our recycling company if they had a larger bin. In fact, they brought us a large rolling bin, slightly smaller than the big rolling trash bins. It's amazing, and not only can it hold weeks worth of bottles, but it has a lid so no one can see them all. It was an extra $4 every quarter, but worth it for the amount of recycling we do.
My city just started recycling. Luckily they got bins like the garbage only with blue lids. We can hide our recycling from prying eyes. Makes the whole recycling thing easier to do.
I live so far in the boonies that we can't get cable tv, postal service, trash pick up, or high speed internet...recycling pick up HA
Ask for a bigger bin with a lid!!!
Ha ha! I would pay to see a pic of the overflowing bottles of beer and wine! :)
LOL. Totally understand your dilemma.
LOL!:) I had this experience that inspired me to tidy up better the other day. A neighbour dropped by for the first time during the afternoon while I was painting a picture and beside my easel was a couple of crushed beer cans and an empty bottle of wine (from the night before I swear!!) but how was she to know?
So I must have appeared like a drunken artist\ stay at home mother of a two year old! What an awful first impression!!:)
It made me smile though and also inspired me to actually tidy things away after dinner rather than sometime the next day!:)
LOL our recycling only gets picked up every other week. CAN YOU IMAGINE??? It's freaking football season & we look like alcoholics.
That is too funny! We used to live in this apartment building, and the guy beside us always sat his trash out by the door in our breezeway. Through the garbage bag you could always see all of the alcoholic leftovers. Beer packages, bottles and can...the occasional Vodka bottle. I didn't judge though...he kept quiet over there, and we never heard him...so I didn't complain...lol
I drop off our paper recyclables to the local school paper dumpster since it's actually helping them raise money. The other recyclables we then put out every week. Thankfully, I don't know our neighbors lol But in our old neighborhood, we knew everyone and were the only ones to recycle and constantly had to deal with comments and stares. But we moved because I didn't like them anyway ;)
I too, live in the boonies. No recycling pick up here. I have to drive 40 minutes to drop off our recycling and they don't recycle glass! Seriously though, the things we do to feel better about ourselves. Sigh.
LoL Shell!
Instead of being concerned about what's in your recycle bin, take a moment to wonder in theirs. Bet your neighbors have very similar bottles. I mean items! LoL
When our oldest was a baby, the recycle truck would only come once a month. When we would put our overflowing bin out on the curb, it was full of empty formula cans and beer bottles. I felt like we were screaming to the world, "We are alcoholics because we have a kid!"
or maybe even the other way around - lol
Maybe you can just get a $10 cheapy trash can and spray paint the recycling symbol on the sides. This way you can put more out and have it covered and concealed. While it wont hold all if it, you can make a dent. Being able to put it out , too. ;)
I like Kim's idea, our recyclable is a huge BLUE trash can that was given to us by the city...no one has to see our "sins" LOL although I don't drink, but they used to see TONS of Diet Coke bottles, like I was a Diet Coke Lush....gave that up too. ;)
This made me giggle out loud, you gave me the smile I needed today.
LOL! You are awesome
Ha!
In Canada we can return those and get money back. So we can buy more alcohol of course ;)
This is hysterical. We don't have room to store weeks of recycling, so it goes out every week. Although the recycling after we have a party is a bit, um, alcohol-laced.
Sneak it in front of a neighbors house bwahahahaha
We don't have recycling pick up. I know. Gasp. I wouldn't even know where to take recycling in our town. So basically if you lived in my neighborhood you could stuff that down in the bottom of the garbage can and the only ones that would know your dirty secret would be the garbage man.
It's frustrating, isn't it - that the recycling truck comes so early? Same deal here: it comes Thursday at the crack o' dawn. But here it's my husband's job to drag it to the curb. He always forgets. I always remember, and I try to remind him. Still, he forgets. But I'd rather have the recycling sit around all week than take on one of "his" chores!
My mission is to destroy the earth so I really don't like recycling.
We are just about to get curbside, and I am so excited. We used to have to load it in the car and schlep to the center. Now we have a gigantic bin with wheels. Yours would fill ours three or four times.
Rather than move to a community with bigger bins, you could drink lower quality bevvies. If it comes in a box or a can, it can be stomped flat to take up less space;)
Haha!! I've had similar issues of bottles at my house.
My aunt has been known to take a walk late at night and distribute some of her family's bottles amongst the neighbors. lol. Of course you would have to wear some sort of ninja suit and take covert video for the blog if you do this method ;-)
We started to recycle last year but since we don't have trucks that come around to gather the stuff...it accrued forever in my basement. I need a better system.
Okay a Mike's Strawberry Lemonade sounds delicious right now.
Too back it's only 7:30 here.
Darn Corn Flakes.
Oh so funny! Ours only gets picked up every other week, but we have a tall rolling bin with a lid!
Recycling start in my city at first. And It was like you : a small plastic basket not that easy to push or drag loll
Now we have a huge blue trash on wheels.
I'm sure you will enjoy recycling when your city got those :D
Hahaha!! OMG I've thought about that too when I'm dropping my empty gallon sized jugs of Tequila at the Recycling center!
Dude. When we first moved to our neighborhood, our neighbors ADMITTED taking late night walks to see "who the drinkers are" in the neighborhood. How effed up is that?
And I have friends (same neighborhood) who stagger their alcohol bottles over a course of weeks so people won't think they're lushes.
Recycling & trash day are the same day for us - Monday morning. That insanely early Monday morning.
So, there may be a reason why I always "forget" to put out the recycling every Sunday night.
The recycling crew usually stops by around 5:30, and I'm always all done by that time . . . so they're the only ones who deal with my mountain of wine & whiskey bottles.
If I went weeks, I'd be in trouble.
So cute! We're on Friday and holidays really screw with my husband. He gets mad when they forget it.
We don't have curbside recycling for glass (just paper/cardboard, plastic and cans). However, my son's elementary school hosts recycling containers each weekend where you can recycle glass. I tend to let my stash of glass items pile up over months, so yeah, I end up at the elementary school on Saturday mornings with a tub full of beer and wine bottles. I want a sign that says, "I'm lazy not a lush!"
I thought you were going to say that your neighbors gripe about you having your bins out too soon. When we lived on post in VA you couldn't bring them out before 6PM. I hate it when we forget. Makes the next week(s) a big pain. Ugh.
This used to make me feel bad because I thought we were the neighborhood lushes (considering we're probably the youngest in our neighborhood by 30 years) and lo and behold our neighbors overflowing with wine and beer bottles...and now I feel no shame!
In Michigan, we pay deposit on pop and beer cans/bottles, so we get to return them for the deposit back. It's nice. Otherwise, I'd have the same issue.
Our recycling truck comes the same day as our garbage, so they can go out together. However, we have people taking the recycling for the aluminum cans and then they just throw the other stuff away, defeating the purpose of recycling, so now we have to wait and take the recycling out in the morning.
All of our trash including recycling has to be taken into our town to a pick up center.
We don't have pick-up at all (we live in a rural area) talk about agreeing with you on HATING the recycling and garbage especially!
I'm with Kmama...in Michigan you would only have to hide the wine bottles ;)
In our house, Ryan takes out the recycling, because I would never remember Sunday night and would have the same back up issues.
Oh, Shell.
You need to meet my neighbor.
As soon as we come back into the house after taking out the recycling, she comes out and digs through ours, pulling out every single water bottle. (There must be a place that pays for bottles.)
So, we hear her digging through all of the glass and it just makes me cringe!
How do you ask someone to please leave your recycling can alone? What's the etiquette on that?
I can almost hear her judging us for the wine and beer bottles! Ugh.
I'd stack the bottles and cans up in a pyramid out in my driveway and watch my kids and their little neighborhood buddies play a fun game of bowling while I sat in my lawn chair enjoying a bottle of "Two-Buck Chuck" *no glass, straight up bottle*
As the after-dinner strollers cruze on by I'd just nod my head and tip my bottle at em cuz after all I'm encouraging healthy outdoor play!
At least you do recycle. I want to but can't ever remember to call and get it set up.
This is why I love our huge recycle cans for single stream recycling are awesome. It holds and takes almost everything...and no one can count the number of bottles of wine and beer we've consumed in such a brief amount of time.
Start putting some wilted balloons next to it so it appears there has been a party of some sort. :)
This is why I'm SO glad we have a can for our recycling!! It closes and everything... ;D
Here in Canada, we return the empties for $$$$. not a bad deal eh?
Labour Day tradition? pile a summer's worth of empties into the truck, drive to beer store....stock up for Thanksgiving and Christmas
Spring? Same thing....return and buy summer stock :)
My brother had some many empties one year in university, that (since they had no leftover money due to beer consumption) they save empty 24's to make their furniture!! No kidding. couch, loveseat, chair AND a coffee table!
We have a giant dumpster for recycling. It's just a pain to have to DRIVE it to the dumpster (there is only one in the middle of our military base) and put it in.
that is awesome. LOL (sorry, I'm laughing WITH you, not AT you - I swear it!! oh, you weren't laughing? umm... please excuse me! I'll be right back!) ;)
thankfully Hubs & I don't drink wine... and the beer/Smirnoff Ice/Mike's Hard Black Cherry Lemonade bottles are all worth 10 cents each - so those stay inside until we take them back for cash :) *phew* our recycling "bin" is this tiny little bucket thing that of course has no lid, so when it rains everything gets soaked... *sigh* oh well. at least ours is picked up Monday mornings... and NOT that early! :) I usually take the garbage & recycling out when I get up before getting ready for the day, or if I'm running late, right before I leave for daycare/work.
I can't put my recycling out the night before because people steal it.
But I have noticed many times that the glass container is full of booze bottles. I'll just blame it on my husband.
We don't even get pickup where we live. We have to take it to the recycling center. So you can imagine how much stuff piles up. Hubs literally loads up his car on a weekend and drives it over. It makes me just want to throw it all in the trash, but at the same time, I feel guilty if I don't recycle!
Hee! You're so funny! Love this!
I just wonder if I really have to wash greasy peanut butter out of the jar to recycle it or can I throw it in dirty and all.
We put ours out the night before and leave it on the street next to the curb. Can you do this?
Lol! That is hilarious. We just have a big can that looks just like our garbage can it is just another color- so easy to hide stuff :)
That is too funny! We have a huge red trash can that the town gave us for recycling. It's easier to hide a few more days worth of bottles and cans in that one. ;)
Oh you are hilarious!! LOVE IT!
We have a big green can that takes all our recycling. It has a lid. But we entertain...A LOT of course the recycling man doesn't know that. I'm sure he things we are the biggest boozers that ever lived.
Too bad you don't live by me...I'd never judge girl cause our recycling bins would be twins!!!
Too funny! I won't lie--I hide the booze bottles under the tuna fish cans & spaghetti sauce jars :-).
I grew so used to separating cans and glass and paper from all the other trash that it became second nature when we lived in San Deigo and now that we're in Orange County, it all goes into one bin. It's so much easier, but very strange.
We pay extra and the sorting gets down at the dump. Gross, right?
LOL. Sure...
We recycle like mad because it cuts down on the cost of trash collection. The problem is that if we forget one week (we get Thursday morning pick-ups as well), we have a TON of stuff the next week. Like, more than two containers full. It's okay to forget to get the trash to the curb one week. But not the recycling. Oh no...
So funny! We have this same problem after FSU home games. We always have 30 (I exaggerate) house guests who drink 30 cases (I don't exaggerate) of beer. It's so embarrassing when Monday rolls around. :-)
yeah, i totally don't recycle - and I should, the problem is is that i dont like to take the trash out so I definately don't want to take the recycle bin out ... i know i know, i am so bad ! :)
I once didn't recycle the bottles for six months. Six months worth of wine bottles. When the Scouts came by for their bottle drive they were ecstatic, but I was kind of embarrassed.
Oh, how I miss Mike's Hard Strawberry Lemonades!
That's fabulous!! You guys don't have a recycle place that you take your bottles back to and they give you money??? That's what we have here. So to be a lush it completely worth it!! ;)
Lynn
Some garbage companies here use the big trash bins with a different colored lid for recyclables. Maybe that's what you need? ;)
Oh Shell, you are funny! I don't use my recycling bins. Horrible? Yes, I know. The bins in my city are tiny and only picked up once every two weeks. If my city adopts a large bin I will participate.
I'd hate taking my recycling out front too, we have back alley trash service. Out front my trash is vulnerable. People go through the front trash. Meh.
---they pick up every other week....but seriously, my bin is stuffed after one week! & then everybody at my house forgets to bring it down...so we are overflowing with Shit! :))
Hahaha! We're the neighbors that always leave the cans out on the curb an extra day after the pick up. I'm so ashamed.
I'm not a great recycler either. We get the aluminum and the cardboard, but that's about it. I barely manage to hold my life together as is.
Sandy
Please tell me your neighbors aren't really that nosy!
Nosy people!!
HAHAHAHAH!!! That is too funny. I suffer from the same problem. There are just some days when it's hard for me to get it together in time... and then I go out with all sorts of cans and plastics (or cardboard on paper days). Thankfully I live in a college town so I'm sure no one is looking in my trash (tell the stroller mommies to mind their business!) :)
hilarious. I guess we'll never make society happy - not happy because we don't recycle and not happy because of the stuff they see of what we recycle. LOL
-mama and the city
We're lucky in that our recycling bins in SF are bigger than our trash bins! Also, we have homeless people who come around and dig through our recycling. They take the cans in to exchange them for money. If this didn't happen our weekly recycling would over flow!
LOL! :) This has happened to me! Just bury as much as you can under other junk... and smuggle it out that way :)
The nakedness at what's in your recycle bin is worse than a morning after walk of shame from a frat house. Those containers should have lids and come in XXL for some of us.
I KNOW.
I.KNOW.
Makes it look like I'm the biggest slacker in the world with the boxes and boxes of cereal in there...like all they get here for breakfast, lunch and dinner is CEREAL.
Oh God...I hate it too...Husband makes me recycle effing TOILET PAPER ROLLS! REALLY?? Those are going to save our planet? Geez!!!
You just need to move to our neighborhood. You'd fit right in with those empty bottles! Since that probably isn't feasible, try this...Get some of the taller trash can size recycling bins and put all of the empty bottles on the bottom and the random bits of recycling on top. The short, rectangular bins don't hide a thing!
We had a party recently, and had so many soda cans, and wine and beer bottles, I had to fill up my little in the apartment bin and empty it out into the big bin down the hall...twice! I was just hoping no one else was trying to recycle, because we filled up the big bin! Oops!
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