There were several comments about recycling and not using plastic. I agree . . plastic is bad but I think some of you don’t realize how some of us live. First, at our house, we can’t even get trash pickup. We have to take everything to the landfill. Vince goes about once a month in the winter and about once every 10 days in the summer. They do have some recycle bins there but it is a bit of trouble to keep everything separate for a month and then his truck is loaded . . totally loaded . . when he goes to the landfill. So, while recycling is possible to some small degree, it is terribly inconvenient.
And, while you’re thinking I don’t care about the environment . . we do. Vince was an environmental engineer and worked hard to control wastes and emissions when he was working for various large companies.
We have an 11 year old car with less than $75,000 miles. We would have 25,000 miles on it if it weren’t for half my heart being in Missouri. We don’t drive much. Except for the trips to Missouri, I don’t even fill up my car once a month.
We use solar panels and generate 85 to 90% of our power via the sun, and send back quite a bit of “clean” electricity for others.
We change out our air conditioner/furnace (central) once every 10 years to be sure we’re using the most energy efficient model out there.
We grow as much of our own food as we can grow. I can it, using glass jars that we re-use for years and years. We don’t use pesticides in the garden . . hence, the bugs usually get more of our produce than we do!
At home, we do compost. We take rabbit poop from friends to add to the garden. We save the droppings from the chicken coop.
So, while we may not be the best at recycling, we are doing some small things to help the environment.
Dottie says
Amen!
marcie says
Gosh, I think you do a huge amount to care for the environment!
Cilla says
I totally agree that you do your share of recycling. We don’t use plastic nor paper products. There are only 2 of us here and various critters. I often wonder what elec I use washing dishes, cloth napkins etc. as opposed to paper products. We looked into solar companies but at our age and the cost of installing the units it would be 40G up front. I would never recoup that. Husband takes his bike to pick up tossed cans that we take to the recycling center (not to our town dump/transfer station) and he gets paid by the lb. It doesn’t pay much but he feels good about it. (I pretend I don’t know him). Just kidding…lol. People are too quick to judge.
Marilyn Smith says
We do recycle but we have three bins that are picked up weekly.
Red can/garbage. Green can/yard trimmings, grass etc. Gray can/ glass, paper, cardboard, soda cans, wine bottles and we pay a hefty price to have that done. We just put in desert landscaping, trying to save water and cut down our @200 a month water bill. We live in the So CA desert and the summers run 110-125 degrees. We have to use air conditioning here. We also have a pool and have had it since the kids were little. We will need to reroof the house before we put solar in and wonder if it is worth it as I am in my 70’s and DH is 80. If we need to use paper or plastic bags, we are charged 10 cents a bag. We use the reusable bags that we have purchased as most cities/towns in CA have outlawed them. We have grown our own veggies in the past when the kids were little. We have citrus trees which I juice fruit and freeze. The fruit we cannot eat we donate to several food banks in the area. Our home is not large enough with room to store canned food. I used to can things – especially tomatoes and spaghetti sauce. Now it is cheaper to just buy what I need for 2 people and we eat fresh veggies every day. What we do is very little compared to Judy and Vince. We even sold our 2nd car as in 11 years we put 11,000 miles on it. We have only had a handful of times when we have both needed the car so we check the calendar before booking appts. We feel good about what we are doing and will continue to be careful!
JEAN says
I believe it is up to each of us to do the best we can to protect our environment. I also believe that encouraging each other is much healthier and will accomplish more than deriding one another. You girlfriends are doing a lovely job, from what I read! Keep up the good work!
-Jean <3
Joyce says
All places have different availabilities for recycling. Our town recycling center stopped accepting plastic shopping bags (Wal-Mart/Target/etc.) a few months ago. We are encouraged to recycle as much as possible (our recycle cans are bigger than our garbage cans) but every time they stop accepting something it makes it harder. The local stores still accept shopping bags for recycling, but I wonder how long that will continue. We also have separate drop-off places for glass, but then you have find room to store glass until you have enough to make the trip to drop it off worthwhile. I compost veggie/fruit scraps and yard waste, and I have a garden. It seems natural to me since I grew up with compost piles and gardens, but not everyone has the space or knowledge/time to do those things. I hope we all just do the best we can with whatever opportunities we have.
patti says
i recycle my plastic grocery bags by using them to line my trash can. i do mostly use the cloth grocery bags but refuse to put meat in those that can leak into the fabric. we are fortunate that our recycle center (we too have to go to the dump vs, a large truck stop by all the houses once a week) is on our way into town, so it is convenient to store those cans/paper/jars for a short time and drop them off as we go by. hard to believe that someone who reads your blog wouldn’t realize all the effort you make in other areas of life that a little plastic grocery sack would amount to a hill of beans.
Nelle Coursey says
In your case that is not a good option. There would be a stinky mess and how do you keep it separate?? They don’t really have recycling at the city level. They just pick up all the garbage we put in the can and it goes to the landfill. Some cities require you to recycle and give you bins to put it in. They pick it up once a week or so. They will even fine you in Georgetown if you don’t recycle some things!
Wendy P says
Sorry – I wasn’t meaning anything against you when I said we recycle – it’s just what we have to do here – we can’t send it to the landfill – there are fines – we live on an island (albeit a fairly large one). We have a great recycling program to divert things from the landfill thankfully – but it’s taken a long time to get to where we are. Hopefully someday your area will improve things for you as well.
Marie Ann Mann says
Sorry, this is a long comment. Recycling is a must, but I think the “Recycling” programs are totally a***about! Recycling should start with the manufacturer and the food processor – we the consumers are only using the products, the packaging of which is forced upon us by corporate greed. Manufacturers and processors should be obliged to to use properly recyclable packaging. In Australia we pay, as I am sure the people of the rest of the world also do, for our garbage collection, and the cost rises each year and the list of good we can place in the bins reduces. People in Judy and Vince’s position, like many of our Primary Producers, have no choices, but were more compostable, packaging available, then everyone’s rubbish would be reduced and our seas would be cleaner.
All soft plastics here are no longer allowed to go in the recycle bin, there is a system at the major supermarkets where we can return clean, washed, soft plastics, ie, zip lock bags, frozen food bags, etc, to be recycled. The type of goods to be placed in the council provided recycle bins is very limited and things one would expect to be recycled cannot be, such as plastic knives and forks, The excuse is ” the sorting machines cannot pick up the small articles” so re-invent the sorting machine so that it can do the job needed! Neither can the sorting machine pick up black plastic – so, legislate to prevent the use of black plastic for all packaging! not exactly rocket science. Aerosol cans are no longer allowed to go into recycling either, so we are expected to collect them and drive 15kms to the council landfill to dispose of them. Even paper recycling is restricted, if you shred sensitive documents, you are not allowed to put the shredded paper in the recycling bin, and the collection trucks are now being fitted with cameras so that if your bin contains an ‘illegal’ product you can be prosecuted. Big Brother!
DonnainKS says
Yikes! !!!
dezertsuz says
You probably do more than 95% of the population, so I don’t think I’d worry about a few plastic bags! You ARE recycling them! From the groceries to a useful demise filled with trash.
Diann says
We have recycling here where I live and I have been diligent on that weekly and it feels good. Also maybe 12 years ago I bought large bags and it was back when Walmart had them for 50 cents each. I bought 8 and they go everywhere in all grocery stores for shopping. I think they still make them but they cost about double and are half size of what I have. That’s our best try at helping the environment. One got a tear after so many years and I slapped a sewed/padded small quilt block on it and sewed it down! They stay in the car so they will always be there when I need them.
Amy in PA says
No judgment from me, we pay for recycling here whether we do it or not, it’s tacked onto the sewer bill. When I met my guy he didn’t do it, now we sure do. I’m still not good with remembering my reusable grocery bags when I shop, at least only Aldi charges me (so far) when I need the plastic bags. But we have township provided recycling containers & we park it at the curb, I feel lucky that we can and the recycling complex is about 2 miles down the road which is cool. I wish we had more sun to take advantage of solar here in PA. We compost our food scraps & I jar all that stuff he grows in the garden! Happy New Year Chicken Judy & Vince!