Oh oh. I got worried this week when Jim replaced his 3’x4’ chair mat. The old one had a hole in it and would never fit into my 1’x4” red capped container. After a bit of research I found that the chair pad was 100% vinyl PVC recycling number 3 and the manufacturer said it was recyclable. To verify this I called my city’s recycling manager who confirmed that it could be put out with our curbside recycling. That’s a relief. I know that this Waste-Less Lent is an artificial project, but I’m really aiming to keep my weekly trash small enough so that it can fit in my red cap container.
Lesson: One of the things I’m learning is that wasting less can take a fair amount of research and that takes time. Most of my research has started online but I usually find that I get the clearest and quickest answer when I can call a company on the phone. Of course finding a phone number for a national company from their website can take longer than the call. I guess this is one of the reasons that doing a project like this for a period of time like the six weeks of Lent makes sense. I probably wouldn’t go to the trouble to do the research on a regular basis, but knowing it’s for a time-limited stretch gives me the motivation. Since the recycling research only has to be done once for the household items that I’m uncertain about means that after Lent I will have built up a pool of information that I can continue to use.
The white waste bucket photo continues to grow. 2 week’s worth are in the white can while Week 3’s garbage is in the red capped container. Looks like I’m not going to fit all 6 weeks of garbage in my white waste basket. Maybe, I’ll have to stomp it down. 🙂 (The ruler and Jim’s hand are for perspective.)
