Recycling on the Go!

Before I had my son, I went through a LOT of cleaning and organizing to make room both for him and my mom who was going to come stay with us for a while to help out after Baby L. got here.  One of the things I did was clean out our guest room which had been piling up with, of all things, recycling.  Now if you live in a community where all you have to do is stick your recycling in a separate bin on trash day, and it's taken care of, then I AM JEALOUS OF YOU.  We don't have that option.  Our option is to take all of our recyclables to a recycling center.  While the ideal inner-environmentalist in me is all for this, my experiences at my local recycling center DRIVE ME UP A WALL.  First, it's ALWAYS busy and filled with people who are recycling mass amounts of stuff to get the cash for the recycling.  I have no problem recycling for cash.  If that's what you want to do, kudos to you.  I, for one, don't have that much to recycle and therefore do not care about the money.  I would like to get in and get the frak out.  (A little BSG for you right there.)  Yet every time I'd try to explain to the nice workers at the recycling center that I don't care about the money, it was like I spoke another language.  They wouldn't take no for an answer, and so I had to do their whole tedious process instead of doing a dump-and-run.  I knew this wouldn't do after I had a kid and was even busier than I already was.  So I started casting about for recycling alternatives and who should rescue me, but my local Target!

As I was exiting after a shopping trip one day, I saw these beauties:

What's that, Target?  You'll take my glass, aluminum, and plastic?  AND I don't have to wait for tedious bureaucracy???  Why, yes, thank you!!!




My next step was to find a way to tidily and conveniently schlepp all my glass, plastic, and aluminum to Target without making a mess out of my car.  One day it hit me: old cat litter containers!!!  (Can you tell I'm passionate about recycling?)

What I love about old cat litter containers are that they're spill proof.  While I rinse out my old containers, they are usually smelly and gross later on, but these bad boys contain all that nasty.  So I regularly fill one of these up and just store it in my trunk until I do a Target run.  I shop at Target pretty frequently, and almost always have a full container waiting in my trunk:

After I go shopping, I load all my purchases in my trunk, have this HUGE visual reminder to recycle, dump off my recyclables, and return the litter container back to my car.  When the cat litter container gets even too gross for me, I throw it away, and use a new, clean one.  Easy peasy.  Now the downside to this is, that it can get a little messy,  In the picture above, next to the litter container is a box of tissue.  I bring a few with me to wipe up any old liquids that might drip onto the Target bins.  I don't like leaving a mess behind.  I also have hand sanitizer in my car's cupholder, in case I touch anything gross while doing this whole recycling and clean-up process.  And often, I get weird looks from the people who see me recycling at Target.  However, for me, it's totally worth it!  It's a little less that goes to the dumpster!  Is it all my recycling?  No.  For example, I'd also love to recycle all the paper I throw away.  But, this is better than nothing.  And I'm a firm believer in every little bit helps.  While I'd love to do more recycling, my life/schedule doesn't permit it and this is a nice compromise.  Ah, I fantasize about the day I move to a community with the nice little recycle bins that get picked up right along with the trash.  But for now, I'll have to make do with my own on-the-go recycling! 

How do you recycle at your place?  Let me know!  I'd love new ideas!