Lincolnite

Excellent timing, as I’ve been wondering about other Lincolnites’ thoughts on RecycleLink. We signed up for the service and have had our bin since the first of May.

My thoughts: We didn’t get credit for the first two weeks of pick up. Not sure if that’s because we didn’t get set up online for almost a month (the welcome packet with our account number needed to set up our online account arrived after more than four weeks instead of the promised two to three weeks; maybe that’s irrelevant to the lack of credit for the first two pickups). We’re not racking up points like I expected, and we don’t miss many recyclables. At this rate we won’t earn nearly enough to recoup the monthly cost for the service. Not really a big deal, but we kind of thought we would. There sure isn’t much guidance from RecycleLink, i.e. do you need to remove caps from plastic bottles? rings from milk jugs? labels from tin cans?

For several years I’ve hauled our recyclables to the city collection sites. RecycleLink is so much more convenient and has greatly reduced the clutter of the separate bins in our garage. We’ll probably keep the service even if we don’t get much from the point system. I too wish they would start accepting glass, which probably would force them to restructure the weight/point system. In addition to the amount of glass, I’m amazed at how much cardboard we generate.

We have had Star City for almost four years and we are very happy with them.  They take glass and don’t require any sorting.  They cost us $11 per month but they come the same day as our garbage service which makes it easy to remember and it is worth every penny.

I thought about using recycle link a while ago, but never did. Now that we live closer to one of the city’s pick ups, it’s much more convenient than it used to be to just haul it in ourselves. We keep two bins- a plastics/glass one and a papers one, and sort it when we get there. I keep the recycling bins in the laundry room off the kitchen, which is also where I keep the rag bin (we’ve ALMOST stopped using paper towels, but I keep them around for cleaning cat related messes).

I have also started just keeping or using many recyclables around the house - mason jars, yogurt containers, etc. I use them instead of the tupperware, for gifts, and for various storage needs around the house.

Oh, and I forgot to mention - now that we’re composting too, we’re producing almost NO trash. I think we should get a discount. 😛

We use Recycling Enterprises and they do a good job. I bet we cut our trash by 60%. And yeah, we had a whole program of crappy recycling songs at Beattie.

Star City takes darn near everything, and is a local family-owned business. http://web.me.com/garkeeviczoom/Star_City_Recycling/What_We_Recycle.html

That combined with composting has resulted in our landfill volume being extremely low. I think we disappoint the trash-collector guys when they keep opening the bin to find it empty 😉

We originally used Journal Star - which had small tote-sized bins at the time. Later, we were wooed to RecycleLink by their large luxurious bins.  After a couple months of service we discovered that Journal Star now has large luxurious bins so we just switched back (plus they gave is a pretty good deal).  For our family, the deciding factor was glass. Frankly, the rewards from RecycleLink were not enough of a factor to have us consider otherwise.  If RecycleLink had rewards that better suited our family, we would be willing to overlook the glass.  So my question to the RecycleLink users would be: What types of rewards do you earn that causes you to stay?

It seems like there is a Lincolnite post & ensuing discussion on local recycling options every 6 months or so. I’ll repeat what I have said each time - I highly reccomend Star City Recycling for their list of acceptable items, thier lack of sorting requirements and their local ownership.

I shared the stage with you on that awesome performance at Beattie. Good ol’ earth day in 4th grade. I couldn’t tell you any of the other songs we did for that program, except I’m sort of remembering one with the lyrics of “so we can live, we’ll teach our children how”. I think there is a video of that concert somewhere at my mom’s house… This is Nate K.

I’ve used RecycleLink for over a year. Reduced our garbage by at least half. We don’t go thru a ton of glass. I’d be more tempted, if I started today, to use the LJS now that they have the good sized totes.

As to Mr. W’s other idea of the can inside, we do the same thing. We bought a blue Rubbermaid office-sized can with the recycle logo, and kept it in the kitchen pantry. Easy to use, when it’s full, it gets dumped in the big can. I liked that so much, I got another for the office.

We have used Journal Star when they had the small bins. I really didn’t mind it. Some how we got our hands on 2 bins which was easier for us, we kept one in the kitchen where we could just toss recyclables in to it. We liked it.

When they switched to the large bins we read that we couldn’t recycle plastic bags. I didn’t realize how much plastic bags were on things until you can’t put them with other recyclables. Bread bags,  shopping bags and even news paper bags.
I get the newspaper and I can’t recycle the bag you game me.

I like how much more Star City Recycling takes. I think we are going to switch.

We LOVE Star City Recycling!  GO LOCAL!

Anyone have any ideas on what to do with styrofoam (mostly food containers and solid packing chunks)? No one at all appears to take it! A few places reuse packing peanuts specifically, but that’s it.