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My family moved to a new community about four years ago and, as with any new situation, we had to blend our old routines with new rules and customs.

When our realtor handed us the keys to our house, she gave us a welcome basket. Along with the map to the city, muffins from a local bakery and a bottle of wine were several neon-orange 3”x4” cards. I grabbed these hoping they were a gift certificate to a local hot spot, but to my dismay they each said “Trash Sticker.”

She explained that one of these lil’ orange babies had to be placed on each container of trash (10-gallon maximum) we left on the curb and that they could be purchased for $3.10 each. I immediately calculated how much trash our family of six generated weekly and wondered what luxury I’d be giving up to pay for trash stickers.

Our Previous Usage
We had been overflowing a 65-gallon container in our previous neighborhood. Since trash collection was part of our city services, we could throw away as much as we accumulated each week and not incur any charges. This open-ended policy didn’t inspire us to sort our trash into recycling bins. I was concerned that continuing our casual approach to trash tossing would add up to more than $20 a week.

Not about to spend that kind of money on orange stickers, I investigated our new community’s trash policies online. I discovered that I had to place stickers on regular trash only. There was no charge for disposing of recyclables, if properly sorted. So our goal was to remove as many recyclables as possible, so that we’d fill up the least amount of regular trash cans that required stickers.

Our New System
How did we proceed? Like I said, this is our family’s program and it started with our kids. But in order for it to work with our kids we needed two things:

1. The right materials - We have large a family, so the little blue desk-sized recycling containers one typically gets were not going to work for us. We would have those things filled up by morning! I purchased two white kitchen trash cans with flip-top lids at a local container store. The kids and I labeled one for paper and one for plastic/can/glass/etc. Next we purchased two brown outdoor 20-gallon trash cans, and the kids used white spray paint to label them same as the others.
2. A simple system - The children were ages 4, 5, 9 and 11 at the time so our process needed to be simple enough for them to execute it daily. We put the two white recycle cans in the kitchen and explained their purpose to the kids. We practiced a few times and talked about what types of things would go in each container. It didn’t take long before they were filling the cans without our prompting.
   • Step one: As the cans filled up, the children would empty them into the larger exterior cans just as they would the regular trash.
   • Step two: The outdoor recycling cans were wheeled to the curb once per week on recycling pick-up day.

Quick Studies
It took only a few weeks for my children to get the hang of what items can be recycled versus what constitutes trash. In the beginning, they would reference the numbering system on a package to determine its viability for recycling. Now they are pros. I’ve even heard some mentoring going on as one shouts to another, “Joe, you need to rinse a can first, “ or “Nick, don’t put that in the trash, it can be recycled!” Ahh! Music to my ears. The two youngest children are now taking pride in teaching our 18-month-old where put trash. Pretty soon, they’ll move her up to the big leagues of recycling.

We have been following this system in our home for four years now and it has become part of our daily routine. Each week we haul two 20-gallon containers—one containing paper and the other plastic/cans/glass/etc. —to the curb for recycling. And even though our family has since increased to seven, we still purchase only one trash sticker per week for our regular trash.

Second Nature
My children are so accustomed to this system of recycling that it's now second nature to them. When we go to another person’s home, they are unsure what to do when they realize they are in a home where recycling is not the norm. They look to me for guidance as they hold their cans; I try to explain to them with my eyes that not everyone recycles as we do.

Thus began our family’s recycling program. I am embarrassed to say it was financially motivated, but many people’s ecology awareness starts off that way. In the end, I guess it doesn’t matter how it began, because our family’s program is thriving. As a result, we have cut our original trash disposal by 66%—and both our pocketbooks and the Earth are benefiting. Best of all, I have instilled a life lesson in my children; recycling has become as natural to them as washing their hands before dinner and rinsing their dishes.

I would encourage each family to adopt whatever system works best for it. I invested very little in a few cans and some spray paint, and my children gained the lesson of a lifetime. Let’s raise a generation for whom recycling is a way of life.

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