I just signed up for our local curbside recycling program (privately run - the city can't afford to start one up, apparently). We used to take our newspapers to drop off points (what I'm not composting, anyways). Our bi-weekly pick-up starts next Wednesday, and our new bins (3) were dropped off on Monday. Now we'll be recycling a bunch of stuff. Paper bin: Newspaper, junk mail, catalogs, magazines, office-type papers, shredded paper. Aluminum bin: Aluminum and steel cans. Does anyone know what the lids on frozen juice concentrate containers are made of? Plastics bin: Any plastics with a screw-on lid. It used to be only #1 and #2, but she said they recently changed that, and now anything with a threaded top can be recycled (exciting, since that includes prescription bottles - I asked)! They'll also take plastic grocery bags, but I don't ever have those around anymore. And they'll take corrogated cardboard, broken down. No boxboard, but I'm composting that anyways, as with most of my cardboard, but it's good to know they'll take broken down boxes if I need them too. We don't have glass recycling yet, but the recycling company owner is trying to put enough money together to build a glass-crushing plant just outside our city. That would be great, I think. For now though, my mom takes our glass bottles - she has a kiln for her stained glass hobby, and she flattens the bottles into bread/cheese trays to sell at craft shows (with attached cheese spreaders). They work great as trivets too - I have several. :-) Most recently I heard that the city is looking at a contract with our local gas company to possibly use the methane from the landfill to produce energy. A step in the right direction, I think...if it's going to be there, we might as well figure out how to use it for "good". Between composting and recycling, the amount of stuff we actually throw into the "landfill" dumpster now is much less than it used to be (one 13 gallon bag per week, most of the time not even full).

Big Sis~ You have more patience than I do...cheap men irritate me the first time. By day 2, I'd be thumping them over the head with something. :O) One of the dresses you sent fit Lili, but the others are a bit too big for her right now. Which is GREAT, because that means she has something to grow into! Lili has started to walk along furniture now! It's rough, though, because we don't have carpet- we're in endless remodel mode, so we only have the bare plywood floor. She keeps falling and hitting her noggin on the floor. Poor baby. I'm thinking of getting her a helmet. LOL It is hard to believe that she's that big already....wow, has this year gone by fast!

I thought of this thread recently when I received a gift from a houseguest. As is so often the case, I think this really comes down to how you feel about the person and the circumstances, not some rule or principle about whether it is okay to regift. How would you feel about this gift: a bracelet (fashion, not fine jewelry), that I have very good reason to believe was a gift his wife received but didn't want? I think many people would think that's terrible. But I appreciated and loved it, and here are the details that both explain why I think it is probably a "regift" and that may make you feel different, as I do: - this is a very close friend, like a brother, and we love his wife, too. We even went on their honeymoon with them! - The day before he started on his trip, he asked me what I wanted him to bring (he lives in Israel and sometimes there is something I need that is hard to find here. We are way past the formal "hostess gift" stage, but Israelis ALWAYS seem to bring a present). He joked that it had to be something he could get at the airport duty free shop, though, because he had severely broken his foot and really couldn't go shopping. I didn't need anything anyway, so I told him to forget it. - His wife is a plastic surgeon whose patients -- especially the breast cancer ones -- absolutely ADORE her. Their house and her office are always filled with cakes, flowers, and gifts. The bracelet was in a box from a store in a far from theirs and to which I can't imagine them going to shop. - She is really, really tiny, and the largeish bracelet probably wouldn't look good on her. And of course she can't wear bracelets while she works. So I'm guessing that they really did want to give me something, it wasn't practical for either of them to shop at the last minute, I told them no when he asked if there was anything I wanted, and they figured that I might like the bracelet, which she wasn't going to wear anyway (or maybe even she loved it and she would have worn it, but she shared it with me instead anyway). I even like to think that they realized I might figure it out, but they feel close enough to me and think enough of me to know I wouldn't mind at all but would understand. I even like to think something like this is what happened, because it speaks of intimacy -- it's the kind of thing you could do with a sister but not with a new acquaintance. The bracelet is pretty and I am enjoying it, most of all because I feel loved and trusted when I wear it.

My former neighbor started a high-tech, materials-handling facility, that claims to offer "true single stream disposal". Meaning you put everything in one large receptacle, the haulers bring it all to his facility, and pay a lower $/ton fee than the local city run "dump" charges, his facility then processes all of the material, separating out recyclables, and then transferring the remainder to the city "dump" and paying their higher per ton fee. His promotional material claims that his facility achieves a higher percentage of recycled material than the other processor in that area that offers "single steam recycling" and separate garbage disposal. When I was remodeling a duplex I own and had a large dumpster in the driveway, a couple of people stopped by to ask whether they could rummage through the dumpster to pull out any metal. My answer was NO, because I didn't want to risk them injuring themselves and suing me. Instead I made an agreement with one of them that I would set any metal waste aside for them to haul away, which seemed like a win-win. I wouldn't have to pay the disposal fee for whatever they took, and they knew enough about where to take it, and how to pre-process it so they could maximize its value. It was especially a win-win, when he offered to remove the entire oil-fired furnace from the low, damp, gross crawlspace, that we were replacing with a heat pump. The HVAC guy wrote up his initial bid including several hundred dollars for its removal and disposal.