This is my little green set up or how my recycling program runs in the house. It is pretty messy…..are you ready for this?
Not the neatest, but we’re working on it….
Trash on the left, recycling on the right.
Tops for Aveda, wrappers for Terracycle
These bags I hang bags on the garage wall to collect tops off bottles. They can’t be recycled but Aveda will take them and use them to make their hair product containers. Any candy wrappers or granola bars, frozen peas, etc. I sometimes give in and buy, I collect for Terracycle. (Because everything is SO DARN CHEAP at the Amish Ben and Dent –salvage type store.) My husband sometimes says it’s not such a good idea to shop there because we buy things we normally wouldn’t. I tell myself as long as I give it to Terracycle….it’s okay to sometimes give in. See me trying to rationalize here? But very few people I know go to this extreme, anyway. Most people just recycle the basics. We’re trying to figure out how to recycle every single thing. 
My husband and his father put the racks for the bags up for me while I was out of town, bless them. They hang right below the trash and recycling bin screaming at me to grab a few before I head out to the store. If I forget, I punish myself by refusing to accept a bag and making myself figure out how to get the said groceries out to the car.
Compostable diapers go in the kitty litter box, egg cartons I hang onto until I can find someone who wants them, box from Amazon is full of those plastic pillows I noticed someone needed on Craig’s List a few towns over. The cans need to be smushed. They won’t take the lid because it’s sharp. I put the lid inside the can and smush it, then it won’t come out and cut anyone.
Neatness is the next step….ha!
Other fabulous articles about recycling and what exactly Terracycle is:
- Fun and frugal (wickedlocal.com)
- Ireland have you discovered TerraCycle yet? (thelessismorechallenge.wordpress.com)
- A Totally Sweet Book on a Smelly Start-Up: Terracycle (thegreenbull.wordpress.com)
- Understanding Recycling – How To Minimize Landfills (simple-green-living.com)
- Frightful Waste: Making Halloween Green (huffingtonpost.com)
Attempting zero waste lifestyle in a military household 
Good to know about Aveda. Do you take them to the store or send them to Aveda. I hate throwing away the bottle tops.
you are doing well Jennifer ..is there much more you can do to ‘be green’ It is useless trying to do it here as nobody wants anything, and the trash carts just take everything…BUT
I am being very good and once again doing my Christmas cards online..this saves the paper, the time, the cost of postage. I like to think that one tree will survive because of what I do.
Some people think it is mean and impersonal but these cards will only go into the rubbish and make more rubbish…my way there is none at all
@chefconnie —You can take them directly to the store, but I’m pretty sure they also have a program where you can send them in. I always just take them to the store. It makes me feel a lot better about being able to recycle the whole darn product instead of just some of it.
@MissWhipLash—All it takes is one step at a time. Good on you for getting those Christmas cards done without using the trees! Your trying makes my heart happy.
So sorry it took me a while to get to this post in my email archives! This is awesome. I collect the egg cartons, and get eggs from mum’s or take the spare containers to the coop for others to reuse. I do the terracycle equivalent, but it’s only to take them to the local shopping mall. We don’t need the Aveda stuff cause we can recycle our bottle tops. I need a place for batteries and light bulbs which I take back to Ikea. There’s just so many things, aren’t there. I freecycle the bubble wrap!
What about this:
Bags from coffee bags.