For this week's Family First, Randy wanted to take on some sort of recycling challenge. For instance, Randy has read about a guy who kept all the trash he didn't recycle in his house. He said "no thanks." Someone else forced herself to carry around her unrecycled trash in a bag. Randy's not that ambitious. But he did allow the recycling coordinator with the Vanderburgh County Solid Waste District to examine a bag of his household garbage.
Randy's family uses the blue bin in the curbside recycling program. So they were pretty happy with their contribution to saving the earth. But when recycling expert Jim Daniels went through a bag of Randy's trash, it didn't take long to realize he could do better. Daniels says the secret is to make it easy to recycle by keeping your blue bin close to your regular trash can.
Things like coffee grounds and filters don't go in the blue bin, but they can be composted. And stuff life aluminum foil and styrofoam aren't part of curbside recycling, but they can be recycled elsewhere.
Randy found out that he could probably cut his family garbage stream in half. And Daniels says Randy's household is fairly typical. So with just a little extra effort, you could reduce the amount of trash you send to the landfill too.