Wednesday 1-18 Do you recycle?

I realize that since being here in the Rio Grande Valley my blog has become very repetitive since we mostly do the same things each day so I thought I would change it up a bit.

Recycling is cool

Do you recycle? Larry and  I aren't recycle fanatics but we do recycle old batteries and aluminum cans. We live in the county and our current trash service does not offer recycling. I remember years ago when cities started recycling they gave you containers to put your recycling in. You had to separate the recyclables in each container; one bin for aluminum cans, one bin for plastics, one bin for glass and another one for newspapers. This could be a pain but now a lot of cities provide one large recyclable container and all you recyclables go in the one container and those item then get sorted out a a recycling center. All the years we have been traveling we have seen recycling to some level all across the country. Some states have a deposit on aluminum cans so this gives people an incentive to return the cans. When you return the cans you put them in a machine and it counts how many cans you have, then it prints out a receipt on how much money you have coming back. If a can isn't sold in their state it will reject it. For example I put a HEB can in a machine in Massachusetts and it rejected it but when I put a Coke can in it was accepted. One state park we went to in New York recycled everything. You took your garbage down to a shed and sorted it out, all non-recyclable trash had to go into clear bags so they could easily see you had not thrown away any recyclable items. Here at the J5 RV Park they have recycling. At the dumpster you recycle your cardboard and across the street at the shed you recycle the rest. They have a container for tin cans, plastic, glass, newspaper and aluminum cans. Before putting your cans in the container you need to crush them, they have a can crusher located right outside of the shed. I use it and while it looks easy it does take a bit of work. You put your can on a small ramp where the can slides down into a hole. Then you take the lever and pull it down and it smashes the can. When the can is smashed it slides out of a slot and falls into a garbage can. Once the can is full they bag them and put them into the shed. I believe most of the people in the park use the recycling bins. 

Can Crusher Machine

Can getting ready to be smashed

 

The bin where the can goes after it's smashed

Recycle Bins at J5 Park

When we lived in Austin they made a law forcing the stores to get rid of their plastic bags and go to reusable bags, we thought this was great idea, saves filling the dump with plastic bags and you can put a lot more items in the cloth bags. Now in all honesty we could have bought and used reusable bags before the law went into effect but we didn't, not sure why, we thought it was a good idea and yet it took the city making a law to get us to change. One problem with the cloth bags is that sometimes you have a tendency to over fill them and until you get used to it you will forget to take them into the store. We keep reusable bags in both vehicles and the RV. Even when we travel we use the bags.

Recycle Bag