Auntie Moon

November 15th is the official America Recycles Day and is a day dedicated to encouraging us to recycle and buy recycled products. I was surprised to learn that 2009 is ARD’s 12th year. Thank goodness someone has been watching out for us. I love the ARD’s motto: “It all comes back to you.”

Yep, recycling is a Scorpio event.

I live in a community where recycling doesn’t seem to be a high priority. Unlike many communities, we aren’t obliged to recycle. We aren’t required to separate plastics, cans, and newspapers from our regular garbage. The sanitation department doesn’t provide bins for curbside recycling and will throw everything into the landfill here. That includes pesticides, old medications, paint, and all kinds of toxic materials. Our landfill has some kind of super liner that allows this kind of dumping. Apparently, when it reaches capacity, they’ll put a supercover over it, and throw a bunch of dirt over it. And then what? This landfill has won a couple of national awards, so I suppose it’s progress, but it still creeps me out.

Regardless of what seems to be reckless abandon, the head hauncho at our landfill assures us that plenty of the county residents are doing their part to recycle. The county has even gone into partnership with a paper mill and uses their unused warehouse to sort and store all the plastics and newspapers collected at bins placed around the county.

Did you know that if you pull out your recyclables and separate your composting materials (all kinds of uncooked food except meats, fish, and dairy), that you’ll reduce your trash to about a third? It’s kind of like having a clean trash compactor. Gardeners are very knowledgeable about the merits of composting and how it’s a magic elixer for your soil. I’ve made the switch to organic gardening. It’s not always as easy as it was before to get rid of weeds. I can’t just spray them away anymore, but conscience overrides comfort. This is my first house. I want good dirt and happy little wild critters, you know. If I poision them, I poision myself.

Plastic bags are a huge problem. The stores will put one item in a plastic bag, and you wind up with 30 of them before you know it. Reduce the problem by getting yourself some reusable bags for shopping and keep them in your car. If you’re in an area where you don’t need to drive to the store, keep them someplace handy enough to grab on your way out. They’re great for all kinds of other purposes, too. I use them to move books around the house from one room to another. Speaking of books ~ when ordering from Amazon, I get as many used books as possible. They’re always in great shape and I save money.

Boils faster!

Here’s a tip from Arm & Hammer that came as a surprise to me when I read it this morning ~  get water to boil faster by putting a lid on the pot. Wow, who knew?! How does that help the world? It saves time, therefore putting a tiny bit less stress on our natural resources, therefore saving us money because we use less electricity, gas, or propane. I’m sort of psyched to check it out. (OK, I’m easily amused.)

If you haven’t taken the first steps toward recycling, try just one little thing to start. Buy one reusable bag, or don’t buy water in a bottle for a week. Teach your children. They’re going to have to put up with an even bigger mess on planet Earth than we do.