Originally posted on June 3rd on 11thhouraction.org:
it kills me that i live in such a beautiful, wooded, animal-populated area and we have NO recycling pick up. luckily, i found a drop off center that is sent from the heavens - they take EVERYTHING!
so we've been pulling everything out we possibly can at our own house that can be recycled - and it turns out, it's A LOT. our tiny kitchen garbage can is barely filled, yet we have an immense amount of recycling. we made a pact to only put our garbage can out once a month, if not once every two months. i think we can do it. honestly, considering the amount of garbage we accumulated in one week, after pledging to recycle, i wouldn't be surprised if we only fill our big garabage can every three months. we've found so many ways to recycle - the list of what NOT to compost/recycle is WAY shorter than what you can.
but even better: i put a call out to my facebook friends that live in our area to piggy back with us. if they did the separating, we would take their compost (free soil for our garden next year!) and recycling. within an hour, i recruited two friends! one lives on the way to the recycling center, so no extra fossil fuels burned, and the other we visit quite often - so we'll pick up when we party (fun times coupled with saving the earth = fantabulous!).
it's like a light went on in our heads - my fiance has dedicated his environmental/wildlife studies to salvaging our Earth, and i have dedicated my day-to-day life (as well as his!) to doing the same. once i get my math degree, i would love to see us join forces professionally and act as a research team. captain planet at it's finest!
our little world got so much better when we started truly caring and acting for the bigger (and more important) world.
but i do have a question for those of you that read this and would like to help us: how can we better recycle in the bathroom - i.e., tissues, shampoo bottles, soap, etc - i have ideas, but i am much more aware of kitchen and everyday recycling. we've cut back on toilet paper use (sorry for the TMI), but i need more! shorter showers, yes! but what else?? ideas, friends?
:)
To save toilet water and reuse shampoo bottles you can fill the used shampoo bottle with water and place it in your tank. When your tank fills up with water the shampoo bottle will take up space and your toilet won't use as much water to fill up and will then use less water each flush.
ReplyDeleteYou can also save toilet water by living by this rule. If it's yellow let it mellow. If it's brown flush it down. If you have others come over you don't have to make them do it. Some are uncomfortable with it. But you and Zack could do this on a day to day basis.
Reduce: Buy the biggest bottle you can since shampoo/conditioner doesn’t go bad. If your bulk bottle is too big to use on a daily basis, use it to refill another bottle again and again. You can also buy solid shampoo bars or make your own.
Here is a website where you can buy bar shampoo.
http://thornappleridgesoaps.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=3
Here is a website with the recipe and instructions to make bar shampoo.
http://www.ehow.com/how_2012740_make-shampoo-bars.html
Recycle: Check the bottom of the bottle to see what type of plastic it is – it’s usually marked in a triangle – to see if you can recycle it with your other plastics.