oh the joys.

First of all, I have to make one thing very clear.... This is not my first time EVER recycling. Perhaps I sound like a total virgin recyclist. However, I actually grew up in a town where our recycling and yard waste bins were both larger than the trash bins....but then I grew up and moved away, had some children and ended up in a city that uses shoe boxes for their recycling program. Don't get me wrong-I have no one to blame other than myself for not getting on the ball sooner...but I am not completely clueless about recycling. I am just clueless about how this city operates their program and what exactly I can recycle because it seems I can't just recycle EVERYTHING. I have to follow some recycling rules.

Did I mention recycling has become a hit around here...I am constantly being bombarded with questions now of what can and can't go in which recycling bag. As if I didn't already have a hard enough time taking five (or thirty five minutes) away from my children to talk on the phone in my closet-now I am being interrupted to sort recycling!!! Perhaps I should have just answered the question this afternoon when I was on the phone long distance with my dear friend and my daughter was bugging me about recycling her snack wrappers. Had I just given her an answer vs. a lecture about not interrupting me, I doubt I would have had to pull those same snack wrappers from the compost bin. Recycling. Composting. Similar concepts. Who knew? I guess each new project brings more to the table, especially when you are 4 and 6 and really want to recycle and save the world too.

My concerns are growing in certain areas as I watch our house become a recycling bin. I wonder, is there a limit with our city as to how much recycling they will actually take come trash day? My husband (who ordered our recycling bins) asked them over the phone about this and they said they take what you put in the bins and "no, you can't use your own trash cans for recycling" but we are wondering if that is just what they have to say? We are certain we see people with their own recycling trash cans outside each trash day. Will I have to wait around in suspense all morning listening for the recycling truck, flying out of bed time after time half asleep to greet the man in my pajamas and ask him if he will "PALEASE" take ALL our recycling because we have bags and bags and I can't handle it anymore...of course we have more than the little shoebox bins can hold and for that matter-who doesn't? Will he reject me? And if he did, what would he do if I just threw it all in his truck anyway? I guess I will find out this week.