Oh it’s a thing of beauty. Our recycling bin from the City has finally arrived. It is so nice to have a bin large enough for all our recycling materials. Like many of you, the hubby and I produce much more recycling materials than garbage. We can put our garbage bin out twice a month and get by, and that’s just to keep the stench at bay, not because the bin is full.
But recycling is another story. Our little 10 gallon bin would overflow after 3 days. So our laundry room (where the recycling is stored) becomes a cacophony of cardboard, glass and plastic by the end of the week. This new bin is a god-send to my housekeeping chores. Thank you recycling gods. (AKA treehugger activists who pressures my City Council people to give us bigger bins.)
So now I’m contemplating a new recycling collection system in my house. Today, it’s a multi-step process. I rinse out the jars, etc and let them dry by the sink. Then I take them into the laundry room where they are collected. The hubby just puts his empties by the fridge, from where I collect, rinse and deposit. (WHY are men incapable of getting past the first step? I still haven’t figured out why the nook next to the refrigerator is the dumping ground for his empties. Ahh, the maddening mysteries of the man-brain. I’m definitely learning to pick my battles.)
So I’m thinking that maybe a full-sized garbage can in the kitchen is the way to go, just like the regular garbage can. So when it gets full, we just walk it out to the bin like the regular garbage. Seems like it would streamline the process, don’t you think?
I have to figure out the situation, though. No- not THAT situation, but the bag-lining situation. I’m using plastic bags in my regular garbage, but that won’t work in the recycling. The City excepts no plastic bags for recycling. But I don’t know if that means I can’t even put my recycling in a plastic bag. Does anyone know of garbage liners that are paper, though? For now I’ll keep use compostable plastic clear liners, but give me a shout out if you find paper liners for a full size kitchen garbage can.
little pebble 
I’m so jealous. Every week I take the recycling stuff out and our 10 gallon bin is overflowing. Fortunately, the county lets us put extra in bags beside it, but it seems ridiculous that we’ve got this massive garbage bin on wheels, that gets at most two bags of trash in a week.
I have no ideas what you can use for liners. Do you need liners? We don’t use any sort of liner but we do rinse out cans and bottles well before placing them in our big blue bin. It doesn’t get stinky and requires hosing out once or twice a year. It works for us! Enjoy your new big blue bin. I guess that means you won’t be topping our up any more. Too bad, I like the extra points.
Hee hee- yeah. By the way, what have you done with your points? Anything good that you can get? I wish we were involved in that program.