everything you need to know about me, in one post
kelly | 2 July 2007 - 10:38pm
Rob and I have to take our recycling to the recycling center at the landfill because there isn't a recycling pickup service that comes by our house. Luckily we have a large garage and so there is plenty of room for sorting and storing the recycling. In fact, there's a built-in workbench that runs the length of one entire wall of the garage, and this workbench might perhaps have been one of the things that convinced me, several years ago, that I wanted this house. There were others, like the hot tub on the deck and the large upstairs bathroom and the laundry chutes. (Laundry chutes! I know, right?!) But the workbench was a major plus as well. Not because Rob and I do projects or anything, but because I knew immediately that it would be the perfect place for my recycling sorting system.
Yeah, there's a reason one of my work colleagues calls me Monica.
Once we bought the house, I set about right away making signs. I printed out, on blue card stock in a nice font, the words #1 plastic, #2 plastic, metals, clear glass, and tinted glass. (I used the phrase "tinted glass" because I wasn't comfortable with the word "colored". People always find that funny for some reason. But seriously - who puts a sign up in their garage with the word "colored"?!)
And then I laminated all the signs. Oh yes I did.
Below each sign hangs a trash bag that we fill with the proper recyclable items, and when it's time to take our trek to the landfill, we just tie the bags and haul them away. We have been using this system for four years, happily sorting and then schlepping the recycling to the landfill, where we throw our #1 plastics into the #1 plastics dumpster, our #2 plastics into the #2 plastics dumpster, and so on. So imagine my dismay when we arrived at the landfill a few weeks ago with our carefully sorted recycling only to discover that they no longer separate it! All the plastics are together in one dumpster! And all the glass in another! I was aghast. Clear and tinted should not be mixed together, people! I know that is a segregationist perspective, but when it comes to recycling, integration is not okay! Milk jugs should not be lying about with soda liters! Beer bottles have no business cozying up to pasta sauce jars!
That was several weeks ago, and I still can't stop sorting at home. I know it's a waste of time to separate everything, just to then pour it all into big bins at the landfill, but I can't not sort it. It doesn't feel right. And also, I just can't bring myself to take down the lovely laminated signs.
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i love you
You're really not that bad. If you were uber anal (forgive me for not doing the double dots over the u), you'd've lined up those push pins perfectly. lol The signs are very purty.
Mrtl! You probably just sent her scurrying to the garage with a ruler to make sure they are perfectly aligned. :-) I am exactly the same way about many things. Sometimes I just like things the way that I like them - because it makes sense to me and is satisfying. For example... I like to sort cds (remember those?!?) alphabetically by genre. Sue has no patience for my system AT ALL. But guess who can find "Queen's Greatest Hits" in under two minutes?
You, my dear, are adorable. Love you.
What does it say about me that I an envious of your recycling sorting center?
The signs are lovely. Really lovely. I think you and I were separated at birth. My tummy felt all skwunchy reading about your recycling centre. Skwunchy in a good and slightly perverted way.
And you guys are awesome for recycling even though you don't have curb pick-up.
So I live in the same county but take my recycling to a (presumably) separate drop off location but in a much less organized fashion as you two. What does it say about our county that at my drop off center the "green", "brown", and "clear" glass all have to be separated into separate bins. At home, I throw all my glass in one big bin and then separate it when I get to the drop off center because all that sorting hardly seems worth it for 2 trips a year. Am I doing all that sorting at my drop off center when they are just dumping the three glass bins into one common bin at some later point? I feel my precious time has been violated if so :(
I used to have to take my recycling in too. Now, we have curbside - one big bin to throw everything recyclable.
Our school is starting a recycling program to raise money, and I just can't fathom sorting it and storing it and schlepping it all in again. I just can't do it. (But that might change if I had a nice garage recycling sorting center like you!)
Also? Wikipedia has EVERYTHING. I love that the picture of Courtney Cox says "Monica Geller" under it. :)
Kelly, Kelly, Kelly. How I love thee. I have to admit, that I had to cut myself off from recycling during the move. There is enough chaos as it is. I kept two recycling bins, one for plastic and one for glass in the kitchen. Gadget Girl constantly used them as trash cans. At least she was using the trash, right?
And the recycling at the landfill? That makes me wonder. Is it a scam? Maybe they get a government kick back for a recycling program, and it just goes into the landfill anyhow. I'm a conspiracy theorist at heart.
mrtl, the imperfect push pin placement is an intentional ploy to prevent being viewed as insane. Yeah, that.
Charlotte, what's odd (and un-Monica) about me is that with other things I'm a complete slob. It's like Felix and Oscar both reside within my mind.
Right back at you, LadyBug!
geeky, you too can have your very own recycling sorting center! It's easy...and fun!
Kranki, I have to tell you that Rob spent some time on your blog the other day and was laughing uproariously. In a good way. In fact, in what I suspect was a skwunchy way. ;) Your creative tags alone provided him much amusement.
Actually, JLD, at the landfill they used to separate the greens from the browns, too. But we so rarely have green glass that I didn't feel the need to devote an entire distinct section of my recycling sorting center to green. I always just separated those at the landfill because there were so few. And dude, if your facility is still sorting, then I am totally going to start taking my recycling there!
I've always wished we could have curbside, Ern, although I think throwing it all in one bin would make me twitch. And I just recently discovered that Wikipedia has entries for fictional characters. Needless to say, I've gleefully read all the Full House ones.
Oh, UCM, I'm totally a conspiracy theorist too! And I've definitely heard of maintenance staff and trash collection services, even locally, who dump the recycling in with the rest of the garbage. Gah!
Seeing that picture resulted in a huge PRC flashback. The colorful, laminated card stock, the fun font, even the push pins (thumbtacks?). Oh, the memories!
You are awesome. I love the laminated signs.
God I miss the PRC, Sydney. I've definitely wished for one at our house.
Thank you, kerri! :)