Project 365: 32

I forgot to add this to my day 31. I was getting the diaper bag ready Sunday evening and Tate was helping. I asked him to pick out what he wanted to wear. Of course, he chose his swim trunks and then got very upset with me when I told him he couldn't wear them.

February 1: I have a couple of things to share. Lately, we have had several hoar frosts. I didn't actually know this was the term for what I always thought of as "freezing fog." I looks really pretty especially when the sun hits it.

Our city implemented a new recycling program, which I am reallay excited about. Yesterday, we finally received our recycle cart! What makes it so great, you ask? Up to this point, we could only recycle #1 and #2 plastics, cans and our paper had to be separated. Everything was put in blue plastic bags, which I'm sure were not recycled, and put by the curb for bi-weekly pick up. Do you know how many plastics are #1 or #2, probably not even half of what we use. Since we use cloth diapers, wipes, and have a compost pile, but still we almost always had more recycle than we did trash.

Now, we have a new single -stream recycling program. We can now recycle #1-7 plastics and nothing has to be separated. According to the local newspaper, participation in the recycling program is expected to jump in participation more than 50%. This number is just based on the number of households that pre-ordered a cart.

Personally, I have seen evidence of this already. When we moved to the neighborhood, no one else really took advantage of the recycling pick up. Gradually, 2 of my neighbors started putting some recycle out too. Now, I see that all 4 houses on my side of the street have these tan recycle carts! I even saw one of my neighbors picking things out of her trash sack and putting them in the recycle.

There are a few drawbacks. Recycle is still only picked up every other week and we can't put shredded paper in the cart, nor can we put it in blue bags to go to the recycle center.  I recycle quite a bit at work too and probably 1/4 of it is shredded paper. I suppose my brother and I will have a lot of shredded paper to add to our compost piles come spring! We used to take the bags of recycle from the shop to one of our houses, either mine, my brother's or my parent's. But now, businesses can even participate! So really, the positives outweigh the negatives by far.