As a child of the late 60's and 70's, I have always been interested in all things green and recycled. This has often been hard to deal with as the area I live in has not, in the past, been up to date on recycling.
The county I live in was once know for having more pigs than people. Needless to say, resources are thin here as it is in most of Michigan right now. Imagine my delight and surprise when a local, family owned garbage service decided to go green! An offer came in the mail to have curbside (yea) pickup of all plastics (1-7), cardboard, newspaper, glass and waste paper. Well, I signed up immediately and saved money over the service I was currently using (bonus). That was the happy part.
Having fibromyalgia changes everything in your life. It affects daily living activities, housework, hobbies and more. My passion for saving the planet soon came face-to-face with the realities of my limitations. After the initial set-up of bins (all located in one place) it came clear that this was going to take some serious problem solving if I was going to be successful.
I started by putting a box at the top of the stairs. Any recycling from the upstairs went into this box. My husband brings the box down periodically to deposit into the proper bins. The same is true of the downstairs. A box located in a corner of the kitchen holds the downstairs items until I or my husband empty it. Some of the packaging is tough for me to deal with so that becomes my husband's job too. I also do some research on-line to try and find products that are the most recyclable and have the least packaging.
Luckily, this service allows all items to be dumped into one provided large bag to be put out at the curb. I help my husband with this every Tuesday.
Now I can hear people saying, well she has a husband to help and I have no one. Well that certainly is true but some problem solving can enable most people to either recycle or at least avoid products with excessive packaging.
I am still refining my "greenness" but this, I believe, is an on-going process of defining what is important to me. What is you "green" story?
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