USVI-On-Line

We just started single stream in our town and we are trying to figure out how to "store" all the stuff before we take it to the bin outside.

What do you use in your kitchen to hold everything? I think our only option is to buy another trash can, but wondered if there is some other option that does the job and doesn't look so "trash can" like.

Thanks!

I don't know what single stream means but we recycle in the kitchen in a small-ish plastic bin. It was a thing that had a lid at one time and was meant more for storing files and things like that I think. From there Charlie dumps it in to a garbage can outside.
We only have pick up once a month - which is a real drag if we miss it! Which we have

We just got a huge bin and it accepts everything; glass, cans, paper, etc. They will pick it up every other week. Then they replaced our tarsh bin with a smaller one, so it really makes you recycle, which I like but we gave so much stuff now.

We single stream here at the Jersey shore and what I do is keep a tallish rectangular heavy duty trash bin outside my kitchen sliders on my deck. When it get fullish we transfer it to another container over where all of my other trash is stored til its time to go to the curb. Ours is picked up by the county every other week also.

Mary Beth, I am surprised you only get monthly pick up! NJ has been a leader in recycling and that just doesn't seem like often enuf! My curb would be lined w/ multiple bins if I missed a month!LOL!

I can barely remember NOT recycling we have been doing it for so long. It's a good thing! Drives me crazy to go anywhere that it's not done.

Our city provides us with two garbage cans on wheels. Recycle stuff goes in the blue one and regular trash goes in the black one. We wheel them to the curb every Tuesday and they get emptied by two separate big trucks that come around. I have a roll-out trash bin in my kitchen for regular trash, and I have something similar to Mary Beth's (a plastic bin) under my kitchen sink for the recycle stuff. As usual, when they're full, they get dumped into the cans outside.

I saw a cool gadget the other day. Of course I can't recall where. It was like a trash compactor for your recycling. It was about $150 and looked like a small portable dishwasher. You put paper and cardboard in one side and plastic and metal in the other. I don't recall if it did glass or not. Everything came out in neat little bundles. I was looking at it because we live on the second floor and its a pain going downstairs all the time.

We have weekly pick-up, single stream here too. I'd be up to my eyeballs in recycling if I had to wait a month!

I wish that we had single streaming. We put cans and bottles together, plastics in another container and papers in another. We keep it all in the garage. We don't have town pickup. So my husband takes it all to the transfer station. We did pay to have everything picked up but it got a little too pricey. We also have to recycle beverage bottles and cans. These are redeemed at a store. So alot of storage in the garage.

Every household here gets 2 blue recycle bins from the village; the recycle is picked up every week same day as the trash.

We have a pullout cabinet in our kitchen that holds 2 bins, one for garbage and one for recycle. When the recycle bin in the kitchen gets full, we bring it out to the blue bins that we keep at the side of the garage.

We sometimes keep a paper shopping bag in the mudroom for newspapers and other papers. Since we both work at home we seem to have alot of paper to recycle. So I try to cut down and use the reusable shopping bags for grocery shopping and clothes shopping, but I don't always remember. It's amazing how many cashiers want to wrap a t shirt in tissue paper then stick it in a new big bag.

I'm glad our town makes it easy with curbside recycling every week. It surprises me that some people still don't do it, and will throw bottles and cans into the regular trash. That stuff all has to end up somewhere!

I have no room under my counter, no pantry and the doors to the deck are not convenient to the kitchen so I guess I will be a 2 trash can house

When we went to single stream recycling we found that about 80% of our trash is accepted into recycle. At that time we converted our regular trash wastecan into the recycle can. It stays in our pantry. We bought a small trash basket that we keep on a shelf in our kitchen counter. Our pickup is once/week for both trash and recycle. The county provides a large recycle bin on wheels. I empty the recycle kitchen can about twice a week into the bin.

There was a guy I worked with who went on the wagon after they implemented recycling and he saw how much he was drinking (!)

jmq wrote:There was a guy I worked with who went on the wagon after they implemented recycling and he saw how much he was drinking (!)

Yes, my daughter commented that when the trash man emptied the recycle bin into the truck last week, the sound of glass beer bottles was overwhelming.

I keep old newpapers, magazines, catalogs etc. in a picnic basket with a lid located in a hallway. Cardboard boxes get lugged out to the bin right away. Glass, plastic, cans, etc, get put into a paper shopping bag stored under the sink. When it's full it goes to the big bin and gets dumped in, bag and all.

My recycling is single stream biweekly pickup.

liamsaunt wrote:I keep old newpapers, magazines, catalogs etc. in a picnic basket with a lid located in a hallway.

That is a great idea! It's hard to be cute with trash management. And my desk is usually overflowing with papers (just got 2 shipments today, both in cardboard and lots of extra un-needed papers) and it's hard to keep it under control. I have a big tin bin next to my desk, but it's not covered. I like your idea!

X - Do you have room for a storage cube? That might work for paper stuff (but not goopy stuff like cans and bottles.) Crate and Barrel has some cute leather ones and I got a nice bamboo one a few years ago at Container Store in my never-ending quest to find a place to put kids' shoes. They're nice because they double as a small seat or stool.

Before I got my double cabinet thingy, I had 2 bins that stacked:
http://www.containerstore.com/browse/Pr ... ODID=65119

This is a better looking (but much more expensive) option: http://www.containerstore.com/browse/Pr ... D=10024154

We have single stream recycling here, too. Bi-weekly pick up for recyclables, weekly trash pick up. With six of us in this house, the recycling bin is not adequate; I really wish it was a weekly pick up. We have tried to place the overflow into brown paper bags and put them by the recycling bin but they will not take them. So, half of the time, they end up in the garbage can which completely defeats the purpose of this system. My rant? Why does a household of six have the same size container as a household of one?

Our kitchen is located right by the garage so we keep our bins in the garage and it's convenient to simply open the door to the garage and pop the recyclables directly into the bin.