Green

Paper or plastic, mom?

Ryan knows how to recycle. He has been doing much of his 3 years, and I think that is fabulous! We have lived in neighborhoods where recycle bins were collected bi-weekly for paper/plastic items, "brown waste" (grass clippings, cardboard, food, etc). The UK also had recycle bins in various areas for glass items that weren't collected from your home. This is what our recycle bin looks like on a good day. On a busy day...it runneth over. Allen grumbles about having to empty it so often....hmmm....maybe similar to my feelings about laundry.

Germany has a great recycling system. They distribute these "mullsackes"-biodegradable, I assume, and items are placed in the appropriate color bag for collection bi-weekly. Bags are bright blue, yellow, red, and clear. You must sort everything---candy wrappers, foil, paper, milk cartons, cans, glass, plastic, etc. They are pretty strict, also. Our neighbors accidentally put milk cartons in the trash collection bags---visibly. Those workers wouldn't collect their bags, and they were left with trash for two more weeks.

Now, that is rough! Ugh. It was a summer month, too.

We recycle almost everything-except diapers, some food waste, and that plastic bag with mushy zucchini that had been pushed in the back of the veggie crisper drawer. Blah. I just couldn't empty it out. That had to exit my hands ---asap.

Twice a year there is a heavy trash collection around the town. I almost took pictures of it, but was fearful of looking silly taking pictures of piles of stuff---really, really old and ugly stuff. We are talking about funky flower furniture, t.v.'s, etc. It looked like the 60's and 70's threw up. Thankfully, that stuff was collected several weeks ago and the town looks normal again. Here was an interesting article that I found about recycling here.....and another.

In celebration of Earth Day, we played outside most of the day. Hello Mr. Sunshine! We missed you (even though you were out for only a few hours!).

Here are some of the things we do to help our earth:

• I purchased the Clorox Greenworks-so far, so good! I often use vinegar with baking soda also. I ashamedly admit---I am a bleach-lovin' girl. Sometimes, you just can't beat it. A more environmentally friendly one? I will keep my eyes open.
• With daylight hours extending, we don't turn on lights as often. We have the energy efficient bulbs in several lamps. For $11.00 a bulb, we have bought a few. Anyway, they are 220v., so we can't use them when we move.
• We use our canvas bags at the stores. We get less "looks" after the commissary introduced green re-usable canvas bags. We are used to this bag issue. German stores usually don't provide bags without a cost, so we take our own. You see many people with a basket in stores also.
• We do have six cloth diapers that we occasionally use. They are from Bum Genius, and they grow with your baby. This is the only set we have needed since you can adjust the snaps for growth. Why I waited until the 5th one to use them-I don't know. The products were available-just not as readily or were very expensive to replace them with every 6 lb. gain.
• If possible, we park and walk to various stores. and locations. The less I have to buckle little ones, the better. Europe is much easier in this aspect. Communities are smaller and geared more toward walking (i.e nice sidewalks!). People have to pay more for gas and automobile taxes here. For some, a car is not always an option.
• On the occasional times we go to McDonald's, I try and tell them we don't need the extra packaging for the kid's meal. Why do we want a huge box, that will just be folded down (and recycled here) anyway? The food obviously doesn't remain in the box and my kids rarely look at it or do the activities.

I'm glad that my children are learning this valuable lesson earlier than some. I think it's important to think of things other than yourself. Happy Day Earth!