{"id":5789,"date":"2018-11-30T07:00:23","date_gmt":"2018-11-30T12:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/?p=5789"},"modified":"2019-05-30T17:33:02","modified_gmt":"2019-05-30T21:33:02","slug":"365180-recycling-the-neighborhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/365180-recycling-the-neighborhood\/","title":{"rendered":"365+#180: Recycling the Neighborhood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My last post on <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/365179-easy-give-aways\/\">giving away socks<\/a><\/span> was easy peasy. This one took some homework and research. We\u2019re all familiar with the environmental slogan, \u201cReduce, Reuse, Recycle.\u201d This is good; but I sometimes rant about how folks often jump to the Recycle part and overlook the more substantive Reduce\/Reuse aspect. After all, we wouldn\u2019t have to recycle so much if we really lived more lightly by consuming less and\u00a0reusing what we already have. Well, today I\u2019m taking exception to my own advice.<\/p>\n<p>It all started several weeks ago as I was driving through the neighborhood on our weekly garbage collection day (which is also recycling day). I noticed that many homes only had their brown garbage carts out at the curb (no green recycling carts). I wondered why?<a href=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Days-365180-recycling-bins.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-5800\" src=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Days-365180-recycling-bins-150x150.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Maybe they were out of town? But no, they had to be home to put out their brown cart.<\/li>\n<li>Maybe they didn\u2019t know that both the brown and the green carts were free?<\/li>\n<li>Maybe they didn\u2019t have any paper, glass, cans, or plastic bottles to recycle? (Maybe I\u2019ve been doing too good of a job of picking up recyclables that I see on the street during my daily walk. <strong>\ud83d\ude09<\/strong>\u00a0)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Days-365180-recycling-carts.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-5798\" src=\"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Days-365180-recycling-carts-150x150.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Days-365180-recycling-carts-150x150.gif 150w, https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Days-365180-recycling-carts-300x300.gif 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>Hmmm. I decided to do some research. On the next garbage\/recycling day, I walked through the neighborhood and counted.<br \/>\n\u2022 102 places had BOTH a brown and a green cart at the curb. Good!<br \/>\n\u2022 160 places had ONLY a brown cart at the curb. (Some of these places had 2 brown carts but no green cart. I assume this was because they were duplex homes rather than one family regularly just had too much garbage to fit into one can.)<\/p>\n<p>Since this was research, I peeked into a few of the brown carts and noticed that recyclable cardboard, cans, etc. were easily visible. Groan.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What to do?<\/strong><br \/>\n1. I could just swallow my frustration and feel satisfied (smug?) that at least my family and closest neighbors were recycling. After all, I\u2019m busy. I have other important things to do. I\u2019m not my neighbor\u2019s keeper.<br \/>\n2. I could take a step to multiply my recycling effort. This idea came to me because of a workshop that Jim and I are facilitating called the <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pachamama.org\/engage\/drawdown\">Pachamama Drawdown Initiative<\/a><\/span>\u00a0based on Paul Hawken\u2019s <em><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.drawdown.org\/\">Drawdown<\/a><\/span><\/em> book which outlines 100 solutions to reverse global warming. The idea is to move beyond personal environmental sustainability lifestyle changes to find ways to multiply our efforts on a community and systemic way.<\/p>\n<p>I chose #2 and decided that one way I could influence at least my neighborhood was to put a notice in our local <a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/find-neighborhood\/\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Neighbor NextDoo<\/span>r<\/a> email group. \u00a0Many communities have these private social networks that send out emails about local services. It seems to be especially useful when looking for lost dogs or cats or alerting folks to suspicious activity in the neighborhood. I called our local waste collection company, got some facts and posted this notice.<\/p>\n<p><em>Dear Neighbor Nextdoor, I care about our neighborhood and about our planet. Today was garbage and recycling day in Latonia where I live. On garbage\/recycling day I have noticed that sometimes only the brown garbage carts are next to the curb but no green recycling carts. I decided to do an informal survey of how many people use the green recycling carts provided FREE by Rumpke. 102 homes put out both carts, <strong>BUT<\/strong> 160 homes put out ONLY the brown garbage carts. We can do a lot better! Did you know that you can easily get a green cart FREE by calling Rumpke (1-800- 828-8171) and talking to customer service? They will deliver the size cart you want to your home within 48 hours. Recycling is picked up every week on the same day as your garbage day. Website: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rumpkerecycling.com\/\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">www.rumpkerecycling.co<\/span>m<\/a><\/em><em> Email: <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"mailto:Covington@rumpke.com\">Covington@rumpke.com<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>So far I\u2019ve gotten 8 responses thanking me for the information and often saying they didn\u2019t know the green carts were free or how to get them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My last post on giving away socks was easy peasy. This one took some homework and research. We\u2019re all familiar with the environmental slogan, \u201cReduce, Reuse, Recycle.\u201d This is good; but I sometimes rant about how folks often jump to the Recycle part and overlook the more substantive Reduce\/Reuse aspect. After all, we wouldn\u2019t have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-5789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-process","tag-recycling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5789"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5811,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5789\/revisions\/5811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}