Gleefully Coerced into Recycling

Of all the new adjustments I knew would come with our move to Ohio, I hardly would have imagined that garbage pick-up would be high on that list. But...so it was.

You see, the lovely town of Upper Arlington has an interesting garbage system. And by interesting I mean completely different from anything I've ever heard of or experienced. The garbage is collected every Tuesday morning. Okay, that's the normal part. Here's the catch: in order for your garbage to be taken by the garbage people, it has to weigh less than 50 pounds AND have a little garbage sticker on it--a little garbage sticker that you can buy from the local grocery store for $2.40. Should you fail to apply the radiant orange sticker to your trash can, it will be left sad, lonely and stinky by your curb until you repent and comply. Weird, huh?

Recyclables, on the other hand, are picked up at the same time at absolutely no charge! How great is that? And, even better, you don't even have to separate them! Paper bags, boxes, cans, and plastics are allowed to co-mingle freely and uninhibitedly. Meaning, no matter how recycling-challenged you may be, (and believe me, I was...) it can be done.

I was pretty intimidated by this system at first. Mostly because I wasn't sure what could and couldn't be recycled. I worried incessantly that I would incorrectly recycle something and be shunned from Upper Arlington society as I knew it. Meaning, my recycling wouldn't get picked up in a timely manner. :) For the first couple of days, Spencer and I felt awkward about throwing anything away. To the point that some "trash" like things were just left out on the counter or the table sheepishly in order to avoid deciding where their final resting place needed to be. :) Obviously, that couldn't continue.

However, with a little help from the recycling savvy Warnick family, I can now say that I am a confident and happy recycler. And I am proud to report that in the almost two months that we have lived here, we have only had to take our garbage can to the curb three times! I had no idea we could produce so little garbage and save so much money by doing so! This program has had the happy effects of allowing me to feel good about being a good steward and live a little more frugally. Fantastic.

I feel guilty, though, that it took the threat of an extra $10 or so per month to get me into recycling. For that, I can feel little moral victory in it. Plus, I think this entire situation begs the following question: When we move somewhere else once our Upper Arlington days are past, will we continue recycling once we actually have to put effort into it? I sure hope so.

But...at least I'm doing it now. The Bardsley family, little by little, is going green. :)