Easy Recycling Organization

WOW! It is FINALLY here - curbside recycling in St. John's! I am so excited for our environment and our community!

Now, you too may be excited like me, but a little concerned about how you are going to sort all those recyclables.... DH and I have been recycling for quite a while, and struggled with this for years. At one point, if you lit a match in our basement, I'm sure the place would have gone up in smoke, we had so many old newspapers and boxes there! And even the thought of sifting through it... uggh. But how we got out of that mess is another story... I won't bore you with it :-) Just share the end result, which is this little cubbie in our kitchen:

So, this is the bottom shelf of a white hutch we have, located on a small wall between the hall and the kitchen fridge (this keeps it easy to access - kind of a central location). And, you can see just how very simple we kept it for ourselves - we have been storing the recyclables in the re-usable grocery bags. One for cardboard, one for paper/magazines. And the one on the far end is for bottles. Everyone knows that when a magazine is read, or a new toy unboxed, or a juice bottle is empty, to put the item in the appropriate bag. We then take those very bags with us when we drop off the recyclables (they are nice & sturdy for a heavy pile of magazines!).

Of course, the good news is, with the new St. John's curbside recycling program, we won't have to make those trips around town, or wait in line to drop off our paper/cardboard anymore - woot! We plan to continue with the same cubbie-system, and on recycling day we will just pour the sorted paper & cardboard items into their blue bags and put on the curb. LOVE it!

As for the bottles, I think we will continue to save those and drop them off ourselves - since the Autobots were Autobabies, every time we cash in recyclables, we divvy the funds up between the two of them and deposit the money into their savings accounts. They have more in cash savings now than I do!

For more information on the curbside recycling, as well as information on what can/cannot be included, click here.

Happy Recycling!!