If you have been purchasing blue or clear “recycling” bags to put in your City of Austin blue recycling cart, I am sorry to say you have been wasting your money. Bagged recycling is prohibited in the City of Austin blue curbside single-stream recycling carts. They’re also prohibited at most apartment complexes. Recycling should be…
It’s the time of year. Flowers, balloons, cards and candy. A few tips and helpful reminders are listed here. Flowers and plants can be composted. Please remove any container or plastic wrap/plastic sleeves before composting. Only the actual plant part should be composted, “If it grows, it goes!” Plastic containers (hard/rigid plastic) can be recycled…
One of the grocery store chains in Texas is HEB. It happens to be the grocery store located in my neighborhood so it’s the one we use. We walk to it when we can. It has a recycling station. This is what the recycling station looked like before this week. You’ll see they used to…
I’ve been trying out Patch bandages over the last several months. I have two of the four types: coconut oil and aloe vera. I’m almost out so I’m ready to share. I first heard about Patch bandages on Treehugger. Read the post, it talks about traditional bandages’ chemicals and reactions. It’s very interesting. Patch bandages…
I’m so excited to share that after one of the neighbors asked, I received the exciting answer that six pack rings, or 6-pack rings depending on your spelling or preference, are recyclable in plastic bag store drop-off containers. Please do not put these in your single stream recycling carts or they will tangle the sorting…
This came up again last weekend so I wanted to remind you all that in the City of Austin, black Styrofoam and black plastics can be recycled! Black Styrofoam The Recycle & Reuse Drop-off Center will accept most foams. It will not accept the 80’s/fluffy/disintegrate-y type foam shown above on the right, but it will…
In this new year, many of you are working to “be greener.” One of the areas you may be looking into is the type of materials your products are made of. This is great! I’m so proud of you. Reading labels, for the environment and your personal health, are one of the most important things…
TerraCycle® is a social enterprise Eliminating the Idea of Waste®. In 20 countries, we tackle the issue from many angles. We have found that nearly everything we touch can be recycled and collect typically non-recyclable items through national, first-of-their-kind recycling platforms. https://www.terracycle.com/en-US Austin is fortunate to have the capability to recycle all that we do. We…
It’s a new year! We’re going to be focusing a bit more on the other R’s this year beyond Recycle even though Recycle is a big area we can always improve on. There are at least 7 Other Rs according to Treehugger: Reduce: Just use less. Return: Producers should take back what they sell. Reuse: Almost boring,…
By far the most popular question I get right now is for help with plastic bags and films. There are many types and people are overwhelmed. It is confusing, there are lots of types, and the directions change a bit to try and correct contamination levels. I’m going to share with you all what I…