You need to watch how you recycle. For example, if you leave the top on a bottle that is made up of a differnet material, the trash company here won't recyle, they toss it. Another example is if your jars aren't cleaned out, they'll also toss those. So check and see if your company has special rules for recycling.

Oh, yeah, for some reason those tops aren't normally recyclable. I use bottled (gallon jugs) water with a blue top. I noticed the tops had the little recycle triangles on them, so I started putting them in, and don't you know, the guys threw them all over the ground around the bin. My latest batch doesn't have the triangles, so I can only think they were put on by mistake.

All shredded paper and newspaper gets saved for mulch and weed barrier for gardening, all household food scraps (coffee grounds, veg and fruit trimmings (worms love it)) are composted in gardening. egg shells are placed around plants to keep slugs away. As they decompose, they composted into rose garden bed. I use the food item boxes for crafts, all material scraps go into a bag for stuffing animal bedding, dryer lint goes out for the nesting critters and birds.
The grandkids love the few laundry bottles ( I cut and they use as scoops to play outside with.) I also use the cut ones as gardening tools, stakes, etc. I use cut 2 liter bottles as mini greenhouses for starting plants, to protect them as they start out.
Store bags get reused as trash bags or donated to thrift store near here.We generally have less than one bag of actual trash a week.

No. We draw ants if we try to save stuff.

We save all our aluminum cans and take them to a local firehouse that uses the money for victims of fires. Our newspapers,plastic,cans, etc are all recycled. We have a compost pile BUT I , in the summer, I like to take all the green scraps, coffee grounds eggs shells etc. and put in blender with water, puree and just pour it on the garden instead....breaks down faster. I save scraps for a friend who makes beds for pet shelter. I make my own bread, so I wash plastic zip lock bags and reuse them again for bread.

This is a heated topic for me. I recycle everything I can. Pop tops from cans go to church as they donate them to help with (I think this is still the cause) paying for kidney dialysis. I separate paper from glass/plastic and put each out in their own brown paper grocery bag marked RECYCLE. I live in a multi family complex and can't really do much more as much as I'd like to. Letters to the association "to better inform homeowners to recycle" are ignored. When I walk in the warm weather I see 2 liter pop bottles and other things inside the plastic garbage bags that are put out by the curb for garbage pickup. I just want to scream "it's NOT garbage - you can recycle that stuff!!"

When I lived in Oregon I used to recycle. We dropped our garbage can down from a 40 gal to a 28 gal; then I moved to Arizona and they don't recycle anything. I did keep up recycling soda cans and water bottles; living only 20 mins from Cali I'd make a trip every three months or so to get paid per pound. I moved to SoCal a year ago and the only thing the debris company picks up is yard stuff. I still turn in the soda and water bottles 'cause they are worth a nickel each; we also do newspaper and cardboard at the local drop boxes. I use cloth shopping bags and what plastic grocery bags we do get go back to the market. The plastic and glass we don't pay deposits on get donated at the recycle stations.

My son does most of the recycling in our house. He does a great job too. Keeps me in line with what is garbage and what is recycling.

You won't if you wash the stuff out first.

In some communities, there is a law saying recycling is mandatory. Find out if that's true for your community, and then report the complex to them. That will get some action!

In some communities, there is a law saying recycling is mandatory. Find out if that's true for your community, and then report the complex to them. That will get some action![/quote]

I will look into this. Thanks for the info. I don't find it all that difficult to do; some people are just lazy.