Thoughts about recycling.

[gordonartist]

We are a dedicated recycling / re-using family. Our philosophy is to try to leave this world a little better because we were here. We have a 7 step program.

Step 1. We refuse to buy what we cannot reuse or recycle if we can. We buy meat from a butcher and dry foods from a bulk food supply and not packaged from the supermarket.

Step 2. All vegetable scraps, uneten vegetable material, kitchen towls, egg shells and some shredded paper go into our plastic mulch heap together with garden waste and lawn clippings. Autumn leaves are spread across our flower gardens to stop weeks and enrich the soil. We don't use artificial fertilizers, only animal manure to encourage earth worms.

Srep 3. All plastic marked as recyclable goes into the recycling bin, all except the round tops. Also, newspapers, toilet rolls, bottles, aluminium and tin cans and anything sharp but clean also goes in.We visited a local recycling plant to check out what we could do to recycle.

Step 4. Plastic bottle tops, small boxes, some plastic food containers and trays {clean but useable}, and all sorts of bits and pieces are placed in a large box and are delivered, where necessary, to our local pre-school kindergarten. Everything has to be clean and safely useable by children. A bit of common sense needs to be applied here. Ask your preschool for more details.

Step 5. Any old clothing, sheets pillowcases, some underware and anything made from cotton is washed and taken to our local opportunity shop. The non saleable material is torn up and sold as rags to the business community.

Step 6 What is left over, and that's not much, is placed in the garbage bin. This is usually only 2 plastic shopping bags full per week. Hard garden materials also go in the garbage bin.

Step 7 When we go for our morning walk we take plastic shopping bags to fill with street litter. We do so with care.

Lots of our friends are cleaners / recyclers and re-users too.

We are open to suggestions.

Take care,

Gordon.

[Marie5656]

Gordon, your ideas sound great. I am going to re-read your post at a later time to get some ideas for home use.:-3

[gordonartist]

Please send any suggestions / improvements to gordonartist hanging out at bigpond.com.

Take care.

Gordon