Following the paper trail

We recycle quite a bit around here. Curbside recycling takes away the plastic, glass, aluminum and steel. We set out one big blue bag every other week with all of that.

We save all of the cardboard boxes that we acquire in a spot in the basement until the mountain reaches a critical mass. Then they get flattened and take a ride to the cardboard recycling bin a few blocks away. You might remember an earlier post about me finally giving up saving cardboard. It's still a difficult thing for me to do.

We have a bag under the kitchen sink where we collect all of our dead batteries from various gizmos. When that bag gets full enough (or breaks open and spills batteries everywhere) we take it up to the library where they have a collection bucket for them.

Old clothes go to Goodwill. Household knick-knacks go there as well if they don't sell on Ebay first. The Man and The Boy have a big pile of found metal in the backyard that they haul up to the salvage place for cash.

But this post today is about paper. The thing that we are most successful at recycling is paper. No one is more devoted to recycling paper than we. Every sheet, scrap, envelope, ad and magazine goes into our paper recycling bin.

Our recycling bin is a good sized box. I'm not exactly sure how long it takes us to fill it but it's not very long. Then it gets to the point where it's overfilled and someone says, "We really need to get to paper recycling." And then some more time passes and the paper has started an annex in a bag beside the bin and someone else might say, "We HAVE GOT to get to paper recycling."

This time around was the absolute worst. We have never been so lax in taking the paper away. It's been weeks of us saying that it had to go but not being taken. Finally today it looked like this:

It's the overfilled bin and FIVE extra bags!

The Man and I finally packed it all into the van and drove it one block to the paper recycling bin.

The schools in the city have a yearly contest on paper collecting. The school with the most tonnage by the end of the year wins cash from the recycling people. Our favorite school wins every year. I like to think that the paper we collect at home is the the factor that pushes the total over the top.
After we did this little chore, we went to vote. Our mayor is facing a recall and the special election is today. The wording on the ballot said, "Shall he be allowed to remain as mayor?" Pretty grim way to say it. By this time tomorrow we will know if he shall or not.