Red about green

So, I am a little red in the face to say up until this summer we haven't been very green. As in, hut hmm, we, you know, shhh, didn't recycle. There, I said it.

The thing is, that recycle bin didn't have any kind of home in our house. We did not have room for it anywhere near the kitchen, where the majority of the recycling takes place. Our garage is detached, so putting it in there would have been a nice though, but I knew the follow through wouldn't happen. We couldn't put it outside the door, because the porch isn't covered and it wouldn't have done well in the elements. So, we didn't recycle. I know, excuses, but we didn't.

Then this summer our town introduced recycling dumpsters. It's big! The same size as our trash dumpster. I saw others in town get it, and we called and asked for one. The heavens opened, the sun shone, and AHA! the Bos family became recyclers!

It's been more than a couple months, and the novelty hasn't worn off with the kids. I can ask them to put something in the recycling dumpster and they fight over who gets to do it. (Often they take turns... one opens the lid and the other puts it in, then they switch next time.) Erin interrupted my shower today to ask, while holding her Gogurt container, "Mommy, trash or recycle?"

I have been astonished at the amount of recycling we do, and how little trash we have now. Our recycling dumpster gets picked up every other week, and it is always filled to the brim. Our trash gets picked up weekly, and we are down to one to two kitchen-size bags of trash. Finally, but yay us!!