Thursday, October 02, 2008

am I speaking another language?

All I wanted to find out was how to recycle cardboard.

I have been putting flat cardboard out with our blue recyclable bin for several weeks now and suddenly they started to leave it behind.
So I started making phone calls.
First I called the town hall.
Clueless.
Since it's the law to recycle here, she seemed to assume that I was looking for an easy way out, and gave me permission to overflow the local landfill to my hearts content by simply throwing all that nasty cardboard out with my rubbish.

I asked her for the number for the recycling company.

I called and posed the same question - do you take flat cardboard (to be differentiated from corrugated cardboard -- which can be recycled here if you are willing to drive it over to the dump yourself, which we do) in the recycle bin.
Now when you work for a company called 'Enviro' shouldn't you know something about recycling in general. Isn't that your business?

She basically told me - No. We don't take that.
Ok, great - would you know who does?
Short silence - Um, no... I have no idea really.

These questions, in this day and age, in my forward thinking state of Connecticut should NOT be this hard to answer. And should certainly not be met with a response that sounds like it's the first time anyone has ever asked. It's not like I asked why the Hadron Collider shut down last week, for goodness sakes.

If you're driving by my house this winter - look for flames shooting out of our chimney. Because I know my pyromaniacal wife is reading this post right now and planning to take matters into her own hands.

(hmm, this begs for a tip-o-day on fire extinguishers)

7 comments:

Jesse said...

we're dealing with the same cardboard issue. They actually left our entire recycle bin last week because there was cardboard in it.

I'm wondering if maybe they want it in the rubbish so that it helps other stuff decompose.

You know, the whole lasagna garden thing..

I dunno.

Let me know if you get anywhere with that, will ya?

weese said...

really? it helps other things decompose? i have never heard that, hmm.

DB said...

We're actually breaking the law by recycling here where we are as we haul all of ours over to Miss A's mom's and dump it right in her recycle bin. I know they wonder how an 80 y/o woman creates so much recycle.

We can recycle most everything except glass. Of course we wouldn't know exactly what they do with it all as they've recently upgraded to big honking cans that get picked up and dumped into a truck. Who knows what they do with the stuff that's not supposed to be in there.

I don't want to think about it because I sometimes wonder whether they actually recycle all that stuff.

LostInColor said...

Are you talking about the cardboard used like for cereal boxes? I hope not, because they should know how to recycle that! Call your city public works division, they should have a list of where to recycle what.

Anonymous said...

I cut up all large cardboard items and put them in the recycle bin, or I lay them in parts of my garden as a combination weed mat and mulch.
My Mum hates the look of it, but it works.

weese said...

Lost - yes I am talking about that.
and I did call public works.
unbelievable.

Me. Here. Right now. said...

Okay, Weese, I'm a big recycler. Here we have the recycle bins, but the large cardboard has to be cut down to fit in the bin. The small rectangular bins were a bear, but now I have the giant 110 gallon recycle bin, so it's mostly cut along the lines. I have never heard of not taking cardboard - not even in less recycling places I've liked like Omaha.

Does the county have a website where they might have recycling information? Good luck!