Its not easy being green!

Mandatory recycling.

I now hate those words! We have lived here for almost 2 years, and never had a problem getting our garbage and mandatory recycling picked up. We knew when we moved in, that the garbage had to be in certain bags, and the recycle in special blue bags...the garbage can had to be a certain size. No garbage will be picked up that contains recycle, and no recycle will be picked up that contains garbage. Okay, we can deal. But then 3 weeks ago happened.

When we got back from Nauvoo, we came home to our lovely full blue recycling bags still sitting on the lawn, with a little yellow note attached. The note stated that it was not picked up because it contained garbage. After thourally inspecting it, we came to the conclusion that the recycle man was insane, and there was no garbage in our special blue bags. So the next 2 weeks pass, and its time for recycling to be picked up again. We replace our same blue bags on the curb, in addition to the 3 new ones we acquired over the last 2 weeks.

Its of course pouring rain, and I wait in the house to watch for our less than mentally sound recycle guy to come by. Here he comes...out comes the yellow slip. I open the front door (in my PJ's, and looking lovely) and yell to the guy through the pouring rain,

"HEY! What is in my recycle that cant be recycled!?"

he yells back, "You've got grocery bags in here!"

I say" I cant recycle grocery bags?!"

" No."

"They always picked them up before!"

"I cant help what someone else did!"

" Well, not all my bags have "garbage" in them. Take the rest."

" All of these bags contain something I cant take!"

With a quizzical look..."WHAT?"

The kids were going by on the bus at this point, as Im yelling out my front door, and arguing with the recycle guy.

he replies" You cant recycle any bags that contained food. You have to take the grocery bags back to the store to be recycled. Check online, or I can have someone come out."

Whatever. I close the door furious, and call Ryan to explain. His solution was just to bag all the recycle into black bags and have the garbage man take them. Its so not worth it!

But, Im trying to save the planet here! So after it stops raining, I pull all six soaking wet bags into the garage (also noticing some of the neighbors had the same problem with theirs being picked up), and proceed to sort through all the soggy papers, and throw away all the plastic bags. I reduced it to 4 bags. Its done. Were good. Right?

Not. I was reading a friends blog and she was talking about her recycle delima, much like ours. So I call her up, and she says that she called the City and the lady there told her that everything had to be separated. Her husband had the same solution as Ryan. The crazy recycle guy didnt say anything about separating it all! So I call the city to get some more answers, because I cant risk another week of it piling up in my garage. She proceeds to explain that yes, not only do they not accept plastic bags (which by the way do contain the "accepted" coded number 2), but you do have to have the paper separated from the plastic, in different bags. The boxes have to be stacked and tied into bundles no larger than a 3X3 square. The plastic containers cannot contain lids.

Great. Now I have to go through it all again and separate it. Good thing I bought the green reusable grocery bags last week, since I got sick of the grocery store putting my groceries into the paper bags that rip. The bagger said people hate the plastic bags. I didnt understand why. Now I do...you cant recycle them! So cross your fingers that it gets picked up this week, because if it doesnt, were going with Ryans plan, and throwing it all away into concealed black bags! You have now had your training on recycling in a crazy city 101. I hope this clears up any confusion with my fellow city residents! Happy Recycling!