Taking Out The Trash

Typically remodeling means a lot of trash, moving into a foreclosure house that is 120 years old, that means even more trash.  I love recycling, and reusing as much as I can. So what is one to do who wants to not create more waste, and wants to remodel?!

well there are some very good solutions to that these days :)


Unfortunately I did not do my homework as thoroughly as I should have.  I knew plastics 1-5 could be recycled where I live, I knew aluminum could be recycled, I knew steel could be recycled, and the copper we would be removing could be sold.

So as we started tearing down stuff we separated some of it.  We also asked the electricians to separate their trash into recyclable and non-recyclable items.  I think they started to do this, and then stopped.  I got part way through one of their garbage cans full of the non-useable  items yesterday and found a lot of items that could be recycled.  Still have a ways to go with sorting through those cans... The carpet was getting pulled up and I assumed that had be trashed, the old linoleum flooring, tile flooring and panels that were on the walls all were getting tossed.  Hubby said to separate the panels that were wood and put them into a 'burn' pile.

On Friday the dump trailer was delivered.  I started to really realize how much stuff was going to be going to a dump yard.  I started to get worried about how much impact I was going to have.  So, to Google I went.  I discovered Hubby and I were on the right track of separating some of the stuff.  What I did learn that Habitat for Humanity Resale stores will actually come through before you start your remodeling and take anything that they can resell.  How cool is that?!  I also started going through some of the other piles that we made and pulled out any wood item to add to the burn pile (Hubby has a camp out with a bunch of people at the start of the summer and they are always looking for fire wood).

Above is the dump trailer with a good portion of our trash.  Had I been more diligent on my homework I am convinced there would be less in there.  My new favorite recycling website is this: 1800recycling.com.  All you have to do is enter your zip code and then it gives you all different answers for your craziest recycling question. They have 10 different categories covered, ranging from yard waster, to plastics, to automotive.  Its pretty sweet, check it out.  I found out that if our carpet had not been so nasty I could have given it away to be reused.

I have been getting a little frustrated after finding plastic water bottles on several window sills left over from the electicians.  So to help encorage everyone to recycle while they are there was this:

there was a lot of cardboard and paper from packaging that I pulled out of the trash this weekend while loading the dump trailer so that all ended up in "the box" as well.

Hopefully I can stay on top of reducing the waste going in to the landfill from here on out.  I proposed my new idea for household trash and how to reduce it to Hubby tonight, seeing since he sometimes thinks I am a bit eccentric with my ideas we will see if I can convince him to see it all the way through.  More on my idea later.