MTM: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

That's right, twenty years! The city has provided curbside pickup of our recyclables for 20 years here in Edmonton. They have many collection sites scattered around the city at malls and community centres, for those that live in apartments, where the complex may not provide a recycle bin. I am proud to say I browbeat talked our manager into getting them put in here ;)

I know, you are all thinking "that's nice, weird, a little boring, but whatever". Well, actually it is a little boring, until you read that Edmonton has the most modern facility in all of North America, here is a pdf photo file of the site. We are turning garbage into fuel, we are capturing the gas from the landfills and turning it into energy to power part of the city. There is an area for recycling old electronics and reducing them to their component parts to be sold and reused in new stuff. We have eco stations throughout the city where you can take hazardous waste to have it recycled and rendered harmless. The city encourages composting and grasscycling, by providing compost bins and courses to homeowners. What does this mean? Well it means that we manage to diverte 60% of our waste from reaching the landfills.

Photo courtsey of City of Edmonton

We also have opened our first Reuse Centre this year, it takes an incredible list of things that are still usable and sells them to someone who will use them for a very nominal fee. You know you have the little bits hanging around from your last project...there is not enough to do another project, but, you hate to see the wool, wood, paper, or whatever go to waste. Well, that is what the resuse centre is for. They will even take paper towel rolls, the last couple of inches of sequins, the extra spool of thread that you find you didn't need. While you are dropping off, you can look for that elusive button to match your coat, or find the exact right sized frame for your picture. Some scraps of fabric to finish the project that has been languishing in your closet for lack of 1/2 yard. Or enough leather to make a project look like a million bucks.

Having been brought up by parents that lived through the "dirty thirties", I know a thing or two about hanging onto stuff because you never know when it might come in handy. That would be why I had moms mascara to use in my WWC post last week. That stuff is probably older than I am for goodness sake! Of course, having been forced to downsize my abode, I had to get rid of a bunch of stuff and the reuse centre would have been very handy then. I did my best to recycle or give away most of it.

So, how about you all. Does your town, county, city have a recycle program? Do you use it, or are you making noise to have them start one?

My Town Mondays are the idea of Travis Erwin and you can visit his blog to read about other places around the globe.

Have a good day all.