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In this rental, the rules are different and they say to bind newspapers before putting into the bin. Soooooo I have to buy string in order to recycle???? They said papers could be placed into paper bags, but who has those???????? these days?!?!???

Some grocery places only give the plastic bags, but whenever given the option in self bagging groceries, I choose to use a few of the paper bags to have around. To me they still work the best for bagging up newspapers or unloading the bin of my Dyson vacuum with no static from plastic bags.

Around here most grocery stores still have paper bags, but you have to ask for them.

I put newspapers in cardboard Coke boxes. Paper labels and junk mail go in cerial or cracker boxes or McDonald's bags.



If you take a plastic grocery bag and cut it in a spiral you get a decent, free substitute for twine.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: JoW,

The grocery stores I frequent will use paper bags if you ask... they do not ask you anymore.

Or you can buy twine which is cheaper than string in many stores.

Easy answer here and, for once, I get to be environmentally-correct!

I just use the baling twine from our $200/ton hay we bought with sticker stock (so you can appreciate it: last year it cost $1800 / this year over $3400 due to ethanol incentives/subsidies) so I am doing my part using the baling twine...

Seriously, don't you have a bin? Just put the newspaper in it - it all goes into a composter anyway so who cares how you gift-wrap it?

Actually I just have to share? We stopped getting the newspaper 2 years ago (seldom miss it). We do have a neighbor cut the crosswords out for us (so that is all we recycle here). Any local news is pretty lame in NE and we can get it all on line now anyway (no paper at all).

In CO we put any papers/light weight cardstock in plastic garbage cans, plastic in another and glass & cans in another and load in the van. We pay 2.50 a large trash bag (of non recycle trash), that we haul to a transfer station. Anything we can put in the recycle bins costs us nothing. (I personally think this is the best way to get folks to recycle)

Idaho resident? Not everyone wants to pay for curbside recycling, as I think that is what your are talking about? (it is 20-25 a month here). If you are loading & hauling newspapers in your vehicle, they can get out of hand sliding around when loading or transferring to the large recycle containers. Thus bagging or twine make sense.

We have massice recycle carts on wheels... takes me a long time to fill it up. Before that, paper/cardboard had to be tied up with twine or in paper bags... no plastic. I try to get paper bags at supermarket whenever possible... just add paper till full and then out into giant bin.

And to Conrad... crossword puzzles! Love 'em and probably print out 5-6 every day... at most major newspaper sites... unfortunately not NYT!?!

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Seriously, don't you have a bin? Just put the newspaper in it - it all goes into a composter anyway so who cares how you gift-wrap it?

Unfortunately, the company says they have to be bound ... makes no sense to me either.

thatchairlady, Xwords...it was the only thing that kept us from canceling the newspaper for a long time. (I really hated the mess of it all over the tables, and then it just went directly to the recycle...what a waste.

DH and I work them together and he knows geography, sports and politics better than I, but I know just about everything else! !

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Originally posted by CJO:

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Seriously, don't you have a bin? Just put the newspaper in it - it all goes into a composter anyway so who cares how you gift-wrap it?

Unfortunately, the company says they have to be bound ... makes no sense to me either.

I can see the logic behind binding papers. I almost wish it was the rule here. High winds while the bin is being emptied will scatter paper all over the place. Bundles of paper don't fly.

We stopped getting any newspapers too....but check with your local schools parking lots...all of ours have recyle dumpsters for paper so we just have cardboard boxes by puter and upstairs that when full we dump at those dumpsters and reuse the boxes. I could put out in my recycle bin but then I would have to bag...too much work. I usually drive by one of those dumpsters on some errand and so it's about every 2 weeks. We also do that favor for our church so it doesn't really create more work, just when the trunk is full we stop.

Sooo the dumpster keeps little papers from blowing around. My bin is usually full of other items weekly anyhow....

Buy a ball of string and bind the papers.
I think the request for binding is for handling at the separation site.
We bind pressed cardboard.
We bind or bag (store plastic bag or grocery bag) newspapers.
Yes, it takes a bit more time, but, gee, people, it's for the environment; it's for recycling. Come on!

I don't recyclic newspaper in the same way that you are talking about. I guess the better way to discribe what I do,is to say that I "reuse" the newspaper. I save the sunday comics(they are printed in colur) and use them to wrap birthday and Christmass gifts for any of the young kids in my life, I keep any of the sports pages that report on "big games" or other sports events and at the end of the year, I make a scrapebook for my son-in -law( a sports nut), of all the reports I have saved. He loves them,( my daughter keeps asking me to stop doing it as she is running out of room to store them!LOL). If there is an artical of special interrest in the food or housekeeping section of the paper, that I think will interrest my daughter, I do the same thing(make a scrape book of the articals). I also use newspaper to wrap the garbage in that accumilates in the sink as I am fixing a meal.IE, potatoe peelings ect. Then I throw that "bundle" in the garbage pail. I also use the newpaper as "firestartes" in my fireplace in the winter. I roll up one or two sections of the paper,(do not use the colured comics as the ink could be toxic), into a tight roll, dip them in melted wax,(I melt down half used candles,ect) when ready to start a fire, lay some of the rolls in the bottom of the grid, then layer some small pieces of kindeling(sp?) ontop of the paper,( have "fat wood" that I use as kindeling),Light the paper first,when the kindeling has caught fire add the smallest peice of wood that you have, as that catches fire, add larger peices of wood as needed.
I also use newpaper to wrape things like glasswear or china that I want to store. All my breakable Christmass orinaments are also wraped in newspaper every year when I take down my tree. And as strange as it may seem, when I was taking care of cancer patients that had somekind of open or draining sores or elder patients that were incontinent, I would take/collect old sheets, cut them to size and sew the sheets around several layers of newpaper and use them as pads on the beds of these patients. These kinds of pads are alot more comfortable then the comercial,plastic pads that used now and a lot more enviormential(sp?) friendly.
The other thing that has for sure gone out of style, is what we used to call/have "paper sales". Ok have to admitt that I am over 60 years old and I am sure that schools no longer do this. But in my "time" it was a great way for the school to raise money to help pay for things like after school activies ect.
It was always presented as a "contest", boys against girls, even grades against odd grades,ect. We would go around our neighborhoods(sp?), with our wagons or other ways to collect the papers, and then on "collection" day, take all the papers that we had collected to the school, where the trucks were wating and our "bundles" were weighted(sp?).The "group" that had collected the most papers got a prize.
But the point of all of this is that years before it became a "movement" recycling was going on. The papers we collected as kids were recyled in a millon differen ways.
Opps! guess that I may have gotten "Off Topic".
On the other hand, maybe it is time for those of you that have answered this post, as well as the rest of us to start to question some of the "rules and requlations" that are being imposed(sp).
Just an idea?
Mary

msmarymac, your post would be easier to read if you used paragraphs.

Only recently have we gotten curbside recycling at our house. We have a bin for all recycleables and don't have to sort or tie anything. The other 13 years, we just collected paper goods in a bin, and the others in another and took them down to the collection site. Drove me crazy because I was accustomed to curbside recycling since way back in the 80's. It actually gives me a physical pain to see folks throw cans and such into the garbage, and I've been responsible for converting several of our friends and family because of it.

We fold newpapers to fit into a paper grocery bag, adding junk mail. If I've accumulated a lot of shredded mail, I stuff it into a smaller bag and add it to the stack. When that "recycling" bag is full, I cover it with a 2nd bag to make a tight package before tossing it into the recycling bin.

I love the tip you gave, JoW, to cut a plastic grocery bag in a spiral to use instead of twine. That is really clever!

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Originally posted by cocok:
I love the tip you gave, JoW, to cut a plastic grocery bag in a spiral to use instead of twine. That is really clever!

Thanks, but its not original. Crocheters use that stuff to crochet rugs for outdoors or for in front of a door that goes outdoors.

Our city uses a private recycling firm that has printed rules. We put ours in paper bags and drop them off at the local school. We really love our newspapers--the daily local one as well as the WSJ at the office and the NYT on the weekend. I don't want just the major stories but also all the human interest stuff. DH loves the puzzles that he does every day. I guess we are old fashioned.