Going Green

I'll be the first to admit - we're not a very green family.  When we moved to Charlotte their recycling program consisted of a red tub that you fill with your recyclables and put on the curb next to the trash can.  Because there is no lid on this tub, we frequently had people's recycling strewn about our yard on trash day.  Super annoying (and kind of gross). 

So between no lid and the fact that they wouldn't deliver a tub, you had to go pick it up somewhere, we decided not to participate.  I know, I know.  We're failing the Earth, blah, blah, blah.  We bought the new light bulbs that look like a fat slinky, but that's about as far as we went.  Until now.

The City of Charlotte announced that it would be implementing a new recycling program.  One that came with a real trash can, with an actual lid.  That's all we needed to hear.  We began saving paper trash like cereal boxes and newspapers to put in our fancy new recycling can (when we got it).

Well today, we got it.  Here it is in all its green glory.

Fresh, clean, with smooth rubber wheels.  It's probably not healthy to be as excited as I am about it.  But I am.  I'm glad that we can really teach the kids about recycling - what's okay and what's not and what some of the benefits are for our planet.  I would even (kind of) like to get a composter to reduce our landfill trash even more.  But that's an endeavor for on down the road.

We set up the new recycling can right outside our garage door with the lid open so we can take large items directly to the can and toss them in.  Then I put a white plastic basket in the kitchen to put all the smaller recyclable things in until I can take it to the can and empty it - this way I'm not running back and forth all the time.

So there you have it.  And the can is already pretty full considering we've had it less than a week.  Of course, all the saved paper helped out with that.