My neighbor called me out on my recycling bin and it stung

I was taking my trash out last Tuesday and my neighbor, Frank, was outside. He pointed at my blue bin and said, 'You know that greasy pizza box just ruins the whole batch, right? They'll toss it all.' I got defensive at first, like 'it's just one box,' but he showed me the city's website on his phone. It said contaminated loads can get sent to the landfill. I felt pretty dumb. So now I'm way more careful. I rinse out cans, check plastic numbers, and yeah, no more pizza boxes in there. It's a small thing but it adds up. Has anyone else had a simple habit they had to unlearn for recycling?

4 comments

4 Comments

brianreed3mo ago

That city website Frank showed you, was it a PDF list or more like a live blog? Our town's rules are buried in a three year old newsletter.

adams.uma3mo ago

Tell me about it, brianreed, ours is a scanned fax from 2006 lol.

hayden_craig953mo ago

Ever think about how much gets messed up by those little plastic windows on envelopes?

annajenkins2mo ago

It's like they designed them to shred the one thing you actually need. My tax refund check looked like it went through a tiny paper shredder. Real helpful stuff.