My Financial Recovery

Happy Earth Day – Some Recycling Thoughts

Posted on: April 22, 2009 by Matt 4 Comments

Make every page count – recycle

Originally uploaded by Earl – What I Saw 2.0

I am a fan of recycling and have tried in the past to do my best to try to reduce my waste. While living in Denver I was able to get a bin from the city to put all my recyclable materials in that they would pick up for free. I filled it pretty much every pickup cycle.

The service was great.  The city would drop off a giant trash can for your address and then pick it up once every two weeks all free of charge.  I would have preferred to find a way to turn a profit for recycling but a free and easy service is the next best thing.

However living in the North East Kingdom of Vermont has proven a bit challenging on the recycling front.  Redemption centers exist for returning cans and bottles (that all have a $0.05 deposit) but from what I have seen you will need to pay in order to recycle all other materials.

From what I have seen there are a plethora of people recycling cans and even scouring the roads for all the nickels they can find but very few households seem to keep recycling bins.  I may be missing something along the way but it seems that nobody I know recycles aside from businesses.

The limited availability of recycling has got me wondering what it would take to open up a free recycling service in a rural area. Again – I am not sure what the local transfer station here offers but think I may cruise over and get their rates at lunch time.  Even a small step in the right direction would be good for the planet and benefit the community.  Also – once again if I could turn a small profit at gathering materials and dropping them off for recycling I will probably have a new hobby.

Anyway – I will post an update with the information I gather from the transfer station today but wanted to ask and see if anyone has experience with starting a recycling center.  If you do I would love to hear a bit about how it works. Until then I will continue to work on getting our household items together and dropped off at my office for recycling (the company pays the bill at least).