Does your trash collection offer those plastic recycle bins? You know for newspapers, milk jugs, cereal boxes ect. My service does but very few people in my neighborhood use them and for a good reason. THE WIND. Where I live is the highest elevation in the county. It’s almost always windy here. So what happens when those bins are put out on trash day and it happens to be windy? You got it, trash is blown all over the neighboring yards.
Today was no exception but perhaps a bit worse than usual. I come home late afternoon, turn into the driveway and the front yard is strewn with my next door neighbors trash from their recycle bin. Not only my yard, but the house across the street and the house next door to me. I’m a little peeved that they haven’t picked it up themselves, she may not have been home from work yet but the husband works from home (in sales) he’s always around.
I go into the house, dump my stuff, get Poco and grab a brown paper grocery bag with handles. For the next 10 minutes I pick up newspapers blown into the shrubbery, pick up their cereal boxes, water bottles, milk containers and whatever else is blown into my yard. I thought about taking the bag back to their house but I didn’t. Instead I put in my garage where it will go in my trash to be picked up next Monday. So much for recycling eh?
Doesn’t it make sense to have a lid on these recycle bins?? I know for sure a lot more people in my neighborhood would use them if they did.
That’s annoying! Hope next time that will not happen again.
It’s funny how there is very little recycling here in Chicago. Sad.
I wish all my neighbors were like you.
We have the same recycling here in Canada Elaine. and yes other peoples junk use to get blown all over the place, until the town finally sent each home a note asking them to either put the blue box with the bottles and cans etc. on top of the paper blue box ( boy what a difference that made ) If I were you I would ask my neighbour to put a rock on his papers to stop them from blowing all over the place, Just to let you know we now have a new container called a green bin as well and we are suppose to put all our other garbage in it such as coffee grounds , egg shells, potatoe peels, etc, in that container, which in my opinion is kind of stupid when you end up throwing all that kind of stuff in to plastic bags anyway, although some town do not allow you to put plastic bags in the green bin. so they end up just throwing them in the garbage the following week when it is garbage day. after all who wants to clean out the green bin and waste all that water, it is so crazy these days with garbage it is getting down right rediculous. Oh I forgot to mention we also had to buy a compost (plastic) can to compost most of what we throw in the green bin anyway.
I would like to know if you go grocery shopping down in the states what kind of bags do they give you. up here they are now trying to sell us green plastic bags that we can use again and again, some stores will not give you any type of bag for anything not paper or plastic.
Martin – thanks! me too but I doubt it. As long as there is wind there will be trash blown around.
Laoch – why is that do you think? I was surprised to read that.
Den – LOL why is that?
Mary Anne - the idea about a rock on top of the newspapers is a good idea! In fact was thinking of that yesterday as I picked all theirs up. I think I will suggest it to them next time I see them outside. Wow, we don’t have any of that green bin stuff yet. About the grocery stores, we’re offered paper or plastic at the checkout counter. I have noticed that many of the stores are selling reusable shopping bags which isn’t a bad idea actually. People that live in cities use them all the time. I haven’t bought any yet though but I probably will at some point.
So enjoyed reading your blog and the comments after.
Elaine, can I ever relate to the wind problem here in the prairies! I can see why they don’t provide bins to go along with the trash bins in our neighborhood. If our trash company offers them, I am not aware of it, or whether they have them or not, in our town, or rest of the province. (I really liked Mary Anne’s suggestions to solve the problem there.)
Instead, we use our own containers to collect recyclable material and take then to a nearby shopping center that has a recycling station. There are many convenient recycling stations around our town.
When I lived in Virginia, the trash service started providing recycle bins years ago. There wasn’t usually a severe wind problem. Stores went to a choice of plastic or paper, when plastic became taboo, and sold the netted or tote bags for being “green”. Of course, people of older generations would already bring their own sturdier “green” containers, because of walking distances, before the name became the by-word.
My parents had similar totes in Winnipeg…and that was also years ago. Funny how we are supposed to think recycling is something new. “Greens” often act like they invented the concept. I know better…coming from generations that had little and conserved and reused everything, whether in Europe, or North America. Most people were NOT the idle rich that wasted, or continue to do so.
I was interested in what Mary Anne said about the recycling of coffee grounds, etc. We don’t have that as part of trash service here.
When I had a garden in Virginia I made my own compost pile, putting coffee grounds, grass clippings, egg shells, and other things in it, to use as mulch. Cities and counties also had mulch piles, from collected recyclable trash, like grass clipping you left in separate plastic bags for trash pick up. The trash companies worked in unison with the counties. You could pick them up by the truck-load, for free, to use for mulch.
Because of the strong winds here, our bins can also roll away, fall over and spew trash, or blow down the street. K is careful about how he layers the weigh of the bags in the bin. We also make sure each and every bag is properly sealed and secure. We can easily see which neighbors don’t do the same.
AAARRRGH! That is the ne plus ultra of aggravating. So sorry that happened, dear. You should design the most practical recycling bin ever known to man, completely wind-proof, and retire on the proceeds!
I was behind a pickup truck on a street near my home last week, and the driver must have been headed to the garbage dump place because ALL KINDS of junk was flying off that truck: parts of a Christmas tree, large boards, and whole BAGS of trash! Into the ROAD! He went right on, oblivious.
As you can imagine, I kept well back and uttered a few choice epithets.
We usually don’t have that wind problem here in Florida, but when we do, it comes with rain. Luckily the papers & trash don’t fly everyone most of the time but if a storm comes through on trash day you might find soaking wet newspapers sitting in muddy puddles. Now you got me seriously wondering why these recycling bins don’t have covers!
Mary Anne,
My wife, who owns Long Meadow Farms Quilts, has been making cloth Ecology Bags for just about 20 years now in fact, she stills uses the prototypes she originally made to go shopping with.
You can check these out if you wish on her Ecology Bag page at her website (the link provided redirects to that page. It’s just easier for me to type
). She doesn’t sell directly from her site but through two different online craft type malls whose links you can find at the bottom of the Ecology Bag page. One called “Craft Mall” and the other called “Hand Made Catalog”.
Never could figure out why they never thought to put lids on those recycle bins (committee planning at work perhaps?) In Vermont most folks just buy two other separate plastic trash cans, one for returnables and one for recyclables. At the end of the week we just haul them to the appropriate places although with the price of gas these days I’m thinking they should consider paying us mileage.
Beth – I always love your comments about life in the “prairie”, I know we’ve often commiserated about the winter snow squalls and blinding white out conditions from high winds. Pretty sure you’re winds are worse than mine though. Good to hear that K and your neighbors taking added precautions so their trash doesn’t end up in someone else’s yard or along the roads.
Jennifer – now that’s an idea! No doubt someone will come up with such a recycle bin and make millions. About that pick up truck ~~ where is a police cruiser when something like this happens? Unreal all that stuff was blowing off and he didn’t stop. Isn’t there some law saying that this should be covered or secured so it can’t blow off? I’ve been in the same situation where I live too and it’s maddening! Once a 2 x4 with nails pointed up was laying across the road right before my subdivision. I ran over it (no way not to) and by the time I pulled in the driveway I had 4 flat tires! Talk about P*& off!!
John – hello and thanks for stopping in. Well now we have a lot of people wondering about lids lol. If someone here invents the new recycle bin I want a share
Kirk – thank you for posting the link! My daughter was talking about reusable bags so I might surprise her with a few. I took a look at the eco bag page and she has a lot of nice ones! And made in America, even better
Elaine, because they would certainly throw all that garbage back to me
I can’t believe you don’t have lids for your recycle bins! We thankfully do. And they’re heavy so we have no problem with our winds (which we do have a lot of). But that doesn’t mean we still don’t have random rubbish sitting on the sides of the roads. In our neighborhood, we have a very considerate individual who goes around periodically and completely voluntarily, picking up all signs of trash. To her, we are very grateful!
Hi Elaine,
Luckily, in the Phoenix area, our ‘recycling’ receptacles are the same size as the regular garbage cans (large, lids that are heavy) that are emptied weekly by a city-contracted service vehicle. The recyclables are taken to one of several huge sorting facilities in town. Recycling programs have been taking off for years here, and as long as the cans aren’t blown over by a monsoon windstorm, they are easy to use. In Phoenix, the recyclables receptacles are blue in color to distinguish them from the standard forest green colored trash containers.
I hope all is well with you and yours!
The recycle bins are widely issued in Australia and they have a lid which is fortunate as my suburb is called Mill Park Heights, hence we’re elevated. I too would go to the effort of cleaning any rubbish that gets wind blown. We have had winds so strong that the bins themselves are blown over.
If the wind doesn’t get into the recycling, then the dogs do. Either way it gets all over the neighborhood. The lids would be a great addition to the containers.
Hope you are doing well.
I know the feeling, our neighbors just put their trash cans out and leave them out, no lids. Constantly trash flying all over the neighbor hood. What does fly out the squirrels drag out. GRRRR!