I just moved to Tennessee with my family. Now, down here they don’t have a good, convenient recycling system. I think all towns should make recycling as convenient as possible so more people participate.
When I lived in Baltimore, they had single-stream recycling. We didn’t have to separate anything! Just collect the recycling in one spot and BOOM! They pick it up and it gets recycled.
However, they don’t have single-stream recycling down here. In fact they don’t have any recycling service that comes to your door. The recycling is split up in different locations and by different items.
One middle school recycles cans on this side of town. A plant recycles scrap metal on the other side of town. Walmart recycles grocery bags. A health food shop recycles egg cartons and glass jars.
Basically you have to piece together a recycling system yourself. Research where to take it and be proactive in sorting the recycling and delivering it.
It’s very inconvenient. It’s the reason my family doesn’t recycle down here. It’s probably a reason why litter is strewn throughout the streets.
There is a group down here that have pieced all this information together in one spot for me. I am grateful for this. So now I know where to take what items where. All I need to do is make a mini recycling center at my house.
So today’s change is to create a recycling center. I’m taking used litter containers that my family collects and turning them into recycling bins. I have 5 for now. And I’ll add more later in future changes, but I want to start small.
I have a bin for aluminum, paper, plastics, grocery bags and one for egg cartons and glass jars.
I decorated them so my younger siblings can be more enticed to actually use these bins.
Sometimes it’s inconvenient, but it’s better than continuing this trip to the landfill.