It's not entirely my fault. Hubby decided we didn't need such a large recycling bin so he had the garbage people swap out our rather large recycling bin for a smaller one. This has proved to be more challenging than I thought it would be. It also emphasizes how much waste a household can produce when you see it filled to the rim.
One of the problems is all the cardboard that comes with delivery of goods. (I mean Amazon. Let's be real.) With our larger bin, Hubby regularly ignored the mandate to break down boxes and tossed them in fully intact. Of course, we had the room so it was rarely a problem (although I couldn't help myself from pulling them out and breaking them down anyway).
Leaving them intact isn't remotely possible with the smaller bin. All the boxes must be broken down or the week's recycling simply won't fit. Even the smallest box, when broken down to lay flat, makes a difference. What's more, I flatten all the plastic gallon jugs from our bottled water. That also makes a huge difference. (I really need to finish cleaning the water line in my refrigerator and stop buying plastic-bottled water.)
What's more is our garbage pick-up day is Friday. In the past, when we had too much recycling to fit in our bin, we'd put the overflow cardboard in our neighbor's bin and it would go out with their trash. But they've rented out the house so now we can't do that! Not only that, if we leave for any given weekend our bins remain unemptied until the following Friday.
It's no problem if the garbage bin or the yard waste bin are not emptied weekly. There's very little waste in those bins on a week-to-week basis. But it's a very real problem if the recycling bin isn't emptied so long as the neighbor's house remains rented which is exactly our current situation.
Last weekend we were out of town and our bins didn't get emptied. Luckily, I had a cardboard box that had yet to be flattened from a recent delivery of wine. I pulled out all the cardboard that was in the recycling bin and stacked it neatly in the cardboard box and found I had a lot of room leftover for even more cardboard not to mention more room in the bin. I think I can put the box out on the curb next to the recycling bin on the next pick-up day (tomorrow) and the garbage guys will take it.
However, what was left in the recycling bin after all the cardboard was sorted out was an embarrassing amount of wine bottles. It occurred to me that those wine bottles are going to make a huge racket as they are dumped into the truck outside my house Friday morning! They probably make a lot of noise every Friday but at least there was cardboard in the bin to muffle sound somewhat.
Now I have two weeks worth of wine bottles in a bin with no cardboard. (It's true I drink a lot of wine but I had help, people. I didn't drink all of it!) There are still those flattened gallon-sized plastic jugs in there. Maybe those will help soften the sound.
Or maybe people a mile away will hear it!
Do you think I could park the bin in front of your house tomorrow morning?
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