The Story of Our Garbage

As living beings we are bound by a cycle of consumption and disposal. However if we make educated decisions about what we consume and how we dispose we can reduce our negative impact.

One of the challenges this year will be to reduce the amount of waste that we produce at our home. Last week we weighed our garbage and recycling. Our recycling came in at 7.5 lbs. for the week.

I asked Mike to guess how much our garbage weighed when he came home from work that day.
He took his bike helmet off before saying "20 lbs"
I perked up and yelped "20 lbs?!?"
He looked at me again and said "25 lbs?".
Nope..not even close! Our garbage weighed in at 2.5 lbs. It consisted of mostly tissues and floss. This may not be our typical garbage production in a single week...so I'm curious and will be weighing our garbage this week too. Stay tuned!

Recycling can sometimes be so daunting, especially when one city may recycle a certain material while others do not. The rules seem to change often too, so it's important to remain educated to fully utilize the resources at hand and ensure that our refuse ends up in the correct place.

That being said, I've done some research. The City of Madison has recently expanded the products that they can recycle, which will help us reduce our garbage production even more!

From their website, Madison recycles the following products if placed in the recycling cart.

PAPER: In addition to newspapers, magazines, catalogs, and corrugated cardboard, you can recycle these paper products:

* Junk Mail
* Paper Grocery Bags
* Envelopes
* Office and Computer Paper
* Phone Books
* Cereal and Cracker Boxes
* Soda Cases etc.
* Paper Egg Cartons
* Paper Milk and Juice Cartons
* Juice Boxes and Other Aseptic Packages

PLASTIC: The City can recycle the following plastic containers:

* All plastic bottles (except Motor Oil bottles)
* #1 Peanut Butter and Condiment Jars
* Plastic Frozen Juice Containers

Basically anything with a screw top. And the City can now recycle the lids and caps from water-type bottles...just make sure they are sealed tightly or they'll fall off and get screened out and thrown away. - I learned this from ENACT!

OTHER: The City does recycle the following:

* Glass Bottles and Jars
* Aluminum Cans
* Aluminum Foil Pans and Pie Plates
* Steel/Tin Cans
* Empty Aerosol Cans


So, we have a lot of options for recycling but what are some common items that the City cannot recycle?

The city of Madison does not recycle the following plastics:

* Tubs and Containers
* Frozen Food Containers
* Microwave Dinner Plates

So all of our sour cream, cottage cheese, cream cheese, yogurt tubs cannot be recycled by the city! I know..shocking! So what do we do?
Well, I've recently learned that Whole Foods collects other plastics for recycling, mainly #5 PP containers. We will be dropping off our first load tonight.

According to the City, 8.3% of the material put into Madison's recycling cannot be recycled. Common things that cannot be recycled but typically end up in recycling carts include; paper or plastic cups, plastic blister packaging (from electronics, batteries etc.), styrofoam, broken glass, light bulbs, and rigid plastics.

Now that I have the correct information, I'll be able to make more educated decisions about what items I purchase and what items I throw away. Here's the City of Madison website for more information:

http://www.cityofmadison.com/streets/index.cfm