All about recycling

A few months back I was driving home when, out of the window of the car in front of me, came flying a cigarette box wrapper. I was incensed! I think littering has to be one of the most selfish, self-absorbed, thoughtless, arrogant, lazy, uncaring things a person can do. (does that get the message across;) I have been known to give people a hard time for spitting chewing gum out of car windows! That's just gross, and irresponsible.

It's so easy to find a bin. Seriously, if you are prepared to litter, I think it says a lot about you, the main thing being that you have a complete lack of respect for your country, your fellow citizens, animals and the environment. In short, if you can litter, it's not a big leap to something far worse. It says a lot about your character and lack of integrity. But I digress...

I saw this happen and I got MAD. I'm not a confrontational person. I tend to shy away from it. But I was mad enough to forget about that for the moment. I pulled up alongside him and opened my passenger window and asked him who he thought was going to pick up after him. He looked a bit shocked and, I think, a bit ashamed but he still said, "If "they" can do it, I can too!" I was curious about who "they" was until he made an entirely racist comment about everyone who was messing up "his" country so I said, "And do you think doing what "everyone else" apparently does makes you a better person?"He drove off swearing and waving his hands around. Very eloquent I thought;) This was a middle aged, middle class guy, who probably has a wife and kids and look at the example he is setting.

Guess he won't be recycling. We're lucky if he even knows what a bin looks like, and sadly, that applies to a lot of South Africans... But the majority of us DO know what a bin looks like;) And the majority of us also have a conscience. I think people WANT to make a difference, they just aren't sure how. Well, recycling is one way you can make a HUGE difference and it's really easy, actually.

Have you thought about where all your rubbish goes once you put your bin out for pick-it-up to collect?

Does this give you an idea?

That is where it goes; into a big landfill.  Pretty, isn't it? Most of that stuff you see ISN'T biodegradable. That means it's going to sit there for centuries to come, polluting our environment and just basically being ugly. Think about how much rubbish you put out once a week. Your bin is usually pretty full, isn't it? Food packaging alone takes up so much space that you can probably fill one bin bag in half a day, not to mention soft drink bottles and milk bottles. You probably go through about 2-3 bin bags every couple of days and 80% of that stuff is probably recyclable. And you're just one household out of millions. So why don't more South Africans recycle? Well, it comes to down to a bit of both ignorance and laziness I think. 

It's a great pity that the majority of South Africa hasn't yet cottoned on to picking up the recycling from your house for free like they do in Europe. I think it's only because we still have a fair amount of landspace here unlike Europe, which is literally running out of landspace. Unfortunately one day, when our government wakes up, it'll be too late and they'll have to take drastic measures. We could help avoid that by recycling now but most people either don't know how to, or think it is just too much effort. If you are not sure how to go about it, but would like to find out, good for you. If you are just being lazy and think you don't have the time for it, shame on you. NOT doing whatever you can for our environment is a little selfish, don't you think? If you truly have time constraints then ok, let's just look at it this way: you all make time to wash dishes don't you? You all have time to throw rubbish in a bin I assume? Well then, you have time to recycle.

We have been recycling in our house for years and it got even easier when we discovered Mama-She's. Thanks to them, we can load ALL our recyclables in ONE bin. That includes paper, plastic, cans and glass. (we wash them if needed, to avoid a smell) Mama-She's collected from our house once a week and we paid R25 a month for that. I know what you're thinking, "Why should I pay when I could just as easily throw that rubbish in a normal bin?" Well, you already know my thoughts on that!  You may not pay, but someone will and it'll probably be your grandkids. If you wanted to save that money, you COULD separate paper, cans, plastic and glass yourself and take it all to a pick-it-up site but then you're using petrol, time AND your own rubbish bags so is it really saving you anything? And it really does get a bit much after a while! I know because I used to do it and it was a mission. I can see why people would lose interest eventually. 

I'd far rather pay R25 a month for the convenience of having someone pick it all up from my house. Mama-She's even supply you with a roll of 20 rubbish bags every couple of weeks. Don't you pay at least R25 a month for 10 or 20 rubbish bin bags for your house? Well then, what are you losing really? Not much by the looks of things.

You may have noticed I said "paid"... Well, we're really lucky because Pick it up have joined forces with Mama She's in our area and now our recycling is collected for free:) All the same procedures, we just don't pay R25 a month anymore. I know they are starting to do this in many areas so enquire with your body corporate about it. Maybe start the initiative yourself.

As you can see, we have 2 bins in our kitchen. The left one is for normal rubbish and the right one is for recycling (the small one is for our compost heap but that's for another post!) If you don't have another bin, use a packet. If don't have space for 2 bins, keep a packet in the kitchen and empty it into a box in your garage/scullery/shed when it gets full.  If you have a house party, keep a bin outside for all the glass bottles, for your guests. All of our guests now know that we operate with 3 bins in our house and they don't even blink about it;) Once a week you put it out on your verge and off it goes. I also put out any cardboard boxes or large packaging I may have, with the recycling and they take those too. See what I mean? It's really so easy!

Unfortunately Mama She's only operates in Johannesburg but look at this link to find a recycling collector near you! I can't speak for all of the others, but I can vouch for Mama She's. You have nothing to lose by looking into the others.

We probably fill about 1 and a half recycling bags a week on average, which would usually go into most people's rubbish bins, and then into a landfill. We don't even fill one normal rubbish bag in a whole WEEK, with other kitchen rubbish, because there is none of the big stuff to take up space and, because we compost all of our fruit and veg cut offs, there is even less in our rubbish bin. When our big bin goes out on a Monday morning, it has ONE rather sad, empty looking bag in it which is about a quarter fill, IF it even has anything in it. The only reason we bother to take it out once a week is because it usually has old bones in it from making bone broth, or it may have some raw meat that our cats didn't finish (our cats are on a raw food diet but that's also another blog post!) So it has to go out to avoid it smelling. That's about all we throw in our actual rubbish bin.

You'd be amazed how much of the stuff you use in your kitchen is recyclable and compostable. I'd say easily 97% of it! I actually save and re-use a lot of containers. They become storage containers for various things. I store my bone broth in my old yogurt containers in my freezer and I keep all my glass honey bottles for storing food because it's healthier and I also use them to make bean sprouts and soak nuts and beans (another post!) My egg cartons are great for planting seeds in because, when you transfer them to the garden, you can actually leave the seedlings IN the egg carton and they'll biodegrade eventually. It makes transferring seedlings a whole lot easier. I also buy several litres of raw milk at a time so, when I get it, I decant it all into 1 litre milk bottles that I've saved, and then I can freeze them until I need them so they don't go off.

Those are just some ideas to get your started with your recycling. There are also loads of fun things you could do with your kids to involve them in your recycling ventures and it will teach them some very good habits for the future!

Tomorrow's post is going to give you some nice, easy ways to make a difference that I bet you didn't even think of so watch this space and keep on keeping it green!