Last week there were a lot of comments regarding my raisin bag {our trash for the week} and if it was acceptable to throw it away in a public garbage can in front a grocery store. The comments were about 50/50.
Yes, throwing away a small amount of garbage at a store/gas station you are shopping at is totally fine.
NO, absolutely not.
Luckily, hanging on to my little ol’ raisin bag for an additional week wasn’t a big burden for me. When we went to visit my parents over the weekend, I just tossed it down their trash chute along with our trash for week 2 as well.
Thank goodness Garbage Gate 2016 was averted.
So. What trash did we accumulate last week?
Plastic wrappers mostly. There was the lid from a jar of beets, several lint roller strips and a foam insert from inside of a sauerkraut jar {which I thought was totally weird}. 
Fact: I could easily buy loose leaf spinach in the produce section instead of buying spinach a plastic bag. Yes, the spinach would cost more and and I would have to be eventually toss out the twist tie that the spinach leaves would be wrapped around. I suppose the only “no waste” way to buy spinach would be to bring my own bag to the farmer’s market and buy it there. Or, grow my own and only eat it in season. 
Lint rollers. A necessary evil when you have a dog and wear black.
Mailing envelopes, paper packaging, ribbons, twine and rubber bands are EXTREMELY easy to reuse and I do so every chance I get.
Everything else, goes into my bins for the recycling center.
Last week someone mentioned that TerraCycle offers boxes {which are sold at Staples} that companies or regular peeps like you and me can pack those hard-to-recycle items like pens, markers, mechanical pencils, etc in and have them be recycled.
The price includes the box and shipping costs to get the box back to TerraCycle. I’m assuming the high price tag also covers the cost TerraCycle incurs to recycle the items. So, do you want to know the cost for one of these magical little waste boxes? $82.99! While I think this is a super clever idea, I have to wonder, are people really willing to shell out $82?! Would YOU?
There are also brand specific products TerraCycle is looking to recycle and all you need to do to send those items in is to check the list here, download a free shipping label and mail it off. I think the whole process is fascinating.
When I canceled our trash service a few weeks ago I was a little worried about what I was going to do with all the packaging that couldn’t be recycled. But as it turns out, almost all of the packaged food products I’m buying can be recycled or stuffed into a small bag at the end of the week. Who knew?
So far so good!
How about you? What percentage of packaging do you think you are recycling these days? Do you think you could go without garbage service?
~Mavis
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Main and Vine $7.98
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