Sorting Secrets

Keep a jug or large keg under the sink to capture water when washing items, like vegetables or fruits. You can use that for watering plants.

Use reusable items like hand cloths or reusable water bottles. This helps reduce all those plastic bottles and paper towels.

If have large bags, like those plastic t-bags laying around, you could collect your daily trash, put them inside and toss them out in the landfill bin. That way, it is neat and tidy, and you don't have to worry about them flying every where.

Keep a Dust Bin in every room in your house

 Licita Fernandez coferhome lynnish gaylestjohn Thank you for sharing your food scraps collection tips! Your ideas might inspire more folks to recycle their food scraps.

My latest conversation: Camille

Put your bins on a shelf or stone wall under the house.  No bending or stooping.  Harvesting is another issue.

Thank you for the suggestion.  I've had composting boxes with worms in my classroom when I was teaching in the public school system.  My back problems are too much for me to maintain a worm composting bin anymore.  I wish I could.

Get a slightly larger container and keep under the porch or stairs.  Find a hand full of worms and introduce them to your vegetable food waste layered with old newspapers.  The worms will eat everything including paper towels, tea bags and used coffee filters.  Very efficient and the results (castings) will really be the best fertilizer for your garden or house plants.

I used to have one of those cute mini-garbage cans that you put on your kitchen counter to keep food scraps in, but I started having bug problems.  Now I fill up plastic storage containers and freeze them when full, then empty them into the green bin the night before pickup.

I keep my green bin from getting smelly by storing my compost in the refrigerator until pickup day.

We save old cereal boxes, milk and juice cartons (remove the plastic) and use them as containers for food scraps and put them into the green can when full.

We bought a regular old stainless pot for $15 from Ikea to use as a composting container on our counter. It has a lid to contain the flies, and is easy to clean.   It was much cheaper than a official "composting" can that runs $30 to $50.

 sbreheny The general rule of thumb of what can go into the Green Bin, or organics bin, is "anything that was once alive." This includes shellfish. So go ahead, put your clam, oyster and mussel shells into your Green Bin to be composted.

My latest conversation: Loren

 magicpanda Great ideas!

My latest conversation: Loren

 magicpanda  Great ideas!

My latest conversation: Loren

I wish there was an ecological way to dispose of clam and mussel shells. I understand that they can't be put in the Green Waste bin.

I reuse any plastic bags that come my way, ex: the bags fm cereal, tortillas, bread, newspaper for cleaning up after my dogs & cats (for cleaning out the litter box). Gives the bags one more use before going to the garbage.

For those of us who have pets, dogs or cats. Almost any plastic bag that is headed for the garbage, ex: bag inside cereal box, bag tortillas or bread come in can be used to pick up after dog or when cleaning up litter box then it's being reused before being thrown away.

 makemyhay Good question. We want to keep the paper and cardboard for recycling clean and dry. Beverage containers should be free of liquid, but do not necessarily need to be rinsed with soap and water. Food containers should be 90% or above the original container. Sometimes a rinse is necessary. So, get out as much of the food contents as possible, certainly all of the liquid. It's okay if there is still a little bit of material that you just can't reach or just won't come off or out of the container.

My latest conversation: Nancy

Do I have to rinse recyclable food & beverage containers before I put them in the recycling bin?

 scmbam  Is the plastic produce or meat tray recyclable? Determine the number (1-7) in the chasing arrows symbol on the tray, then check with your city's service provider at http://www.readysetrecyclecontest.org/recycling-in-your-city/.  

All city recycling programs accept numbers 1 & 2. The numbers refer to the kind of plastic used to make the plastic item. 

My latest conversation: Isabella

 scmbam Any color or size of CLEAN and DRY plastic and bio-plastic bags can be bagged into a Bag-of-Bags for recycling. Other clean flimsy plastics, or film plastic, can be included in the Bag-of Bags. For example, Ziploc bags, dry cleaner bags, six-pack rings, bubble wrap, popped air shipping bags, berry baskets, and plastic mesh produce bags.

Bring your Bag-of-Bags back to your grocery store for recycling. Containers to collect them should be located by the store's entrance.

Additionally, check with your city's service provider to see if they accept Bag-of-Bags in their curbside recycling program at http://www.readysetrecyclecontest.org/recycling-in-your-city/.

My latest conversation: Isabella

Can plastic bags (bread bags, bags used for newspaper delivery) be recycled?

Also was wondering about 'plastic' produce trays (squash etc packaged from trader joes)

 NoraGoodfriend Koven Although corks cannot be recycled curbside, you can find a place to recycle them through http://recork.org/locations. For reuse, you can drop them off at http://www.creativereuse.org/

what about wine corks?

Thanks for the comments/questions! Milk cartons or plastic jugs? They both can be recycled so take your pick. See the Recycling in Your City tab to see what cart to put them in. And yes, envelopes with clear windows go in the recycling cart.

Can envelopes with the clear window on them be recycled or only 100% paper envelopes?

Is it better to buy milk in plastic jugs that you can recycle or cartons you can recycle?

I wrap my kitchen food scraps in newspaper as this helps me keep my organic can cleaner and odor free.