“October extinguished itself in a rush of howling winds and driving rain and November arrived, cold as frozen iron, with hard frosts every morning and icy drafts that bit at exposed hands and faces.”
― Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
My October ended exactly as J.K. Rowling describes…windy and so rainy! And the start of November seems to be on track for her words as well (the cold is here!!) Yes, the heat is on in my house…and I welcomed turning it on!
AND!!
Welcome to my new Monday format…Monday Question’s! Some weeks, I will be asking you a question or two as I seek your opinion/advice… other week’s I will highlight a question you have asked me in comments!
This week, I have a question for you! This question is a hot button issue in my house these days… it almost always instantly takes the conversation from 0 to 60 in a nanosecond. So… help!
My question this week involves recycling… or rather the recycling of a specific item… the varied assortment of cardboard boxes that arrive in this house over a two week period. Now, our “Recycling Body” (i.e. Scott Township) takes “flattened cardboard and paper” … which means to me, flatten all boxes and place them in the bin. Someone in this house thinks you can just put whole boxes in (as do my neighbors…whole cardboard boxes overflow their bin and if there is a breeze they go all over the place) The heated discussions revolve around the fact that Waste Management takes *all* the recycling from the street… flattened boxes and unflattened boxes, but I believe that things that are not in “compliance” are thrown away – defeating the purpose of recycling, imo. (And, personally this feels like a ploy to NOT break down boxes and leave them for me, just sayin’)
So…break down boxes? Or don’t?
A very small post script… I am happy to report that my pinky toe is NOT broken but I have arrived at the How Many Colors Can Your Bruise Turn Stage… but I will take multicolored bruising versus a broken toe!
Happy Monday everyone!
Photo by Olya Kobruseva from Pexels
We always flatten all of our boxes! I think our town would recycle them even if they weren’t because we take them to the transfer station and throw them in the dumpster ourselves, but it’s just neater to have them flattened while we’re waiting on dump day.
I’m glad to hear your pinkie toe isn’t broken and hope you’ll be back at your sewing machine soon!
Glad your pinkie is just (just??) bruised. We flatten boxes all the time. We also flatten cardboard egg crates, tissue boxes and other stuff. It’s just easier to not overflow the recycling can.
Definitely flatten– takes way less space and easier for me to transport to my recycle center (I don’t trust the curbside single-stream recycle pickup to do a good job of sorting– I see too much of what my neighbors dump in their curbside recycle bin… *sigh*). And if I am making the effort to recycle, I want to feel that as much is being recycled as possible
Medium to large boxes always flatten. I may not flatten small boxes but my husband flattens all cardboard. Our recycling center puts everything in a giant compacter and flattens all of it, again.
We’ve just had a big recycling overhaul in our town in NJ. The borough signed a new contract with Waste Management and now we have these huge 96 gallon wheeled bins for recycling and trash. They don’t specify flattened or unflattened boxes in the instructions, but everything (paper, plastic, glass, and cardboard) has to fit into this big bin that gets collected every two weeks. We always flatten our boxes so they will fit in the bin, but we’ve been flattening for years. Back before we had single-stream recycling, we had to flatten the boxes and wrap them up with twine. That was a pain in the neck, so I’m happy that all I have to do is flatten. (Glad your toe isn’t broken and you’ll soon be driving your sewing machine!)
First, glad your toe is not broken. No need to age with a funky toe. Second, we flatten mainly because we do not have garbage pick up and bring everything to the “dump”. So much easier to haul all those boxes when flatten along with garbage bags.
Good news on your toe! Have fun watching those colors change!
We always flatten our boxes. I think the recycling truck will still take boxes even if they aren’t flattened, but I’m a rule follower, and if they ask me to do it, I will. Plus, if we flatten them, they actually fit into our recycling bins.
I may be totally off base, but I always assumed that we were asked to flatten boxes so that they took up less space in the truck and (because we’re asked to bundle them together) so that it would be more efficient to pick them up. I think your simplest argument for that Someone in your house is that flattening is what you’re asked to do, so why not just do it?
We (and when I say “we” I mean Dale) flatten our boxes, mostly because we’d run out of room otherwise. I’m not sure it’s necessary or a rule, though.
First, your poor multi-colored toe: I have a cowl made from Toe Jam yarn in colorway ‘Bruise”. https://www.ravelry.com/projects/kmkat/willow-cowl
Next, we (Smokey) always flatten corrugated cardboard boxes. Lightweight boxes — think cereal boxes — go in the trash, but we often flatten them to save space.
Re: mixed stuff to be recycled. We can recycle clear glass, brown glass, green glass, and #1 and #2 plastics. Our recycling center hires people from the county sheltered workshop to sort. Win-win!
We flatten all the big boxes and most of the smaller ones. We deliver our recycling to bins and it needs to be sorted there. It’s easier to sort by container at home. I don’t know that there are any ordinances about flattening boxes but all cardboard is to be recycled. Trash pickup is by private companies and for an extra fee they will pick up recycling. We’ve always delivered our own – it isn’t far to drive.
We flatten most boxes, but sometimes we keep one unflattened to store/carry the others to take them to the curb. D.C. would prefer boxes flattened, but don’t require it.
Our garbage company give a recycling container on wheels and we (meaning he) breaks down and cuts up cardboard boxes so they fit inside the container. Where we used to live you placed them beside the recycling container broken down OR drove them to the recycling center to drop off in any shape.
I flatten, mostly because it looks much tidier and seem to take up way less space. Our recycling is picked up separately, and has an “arm” that empties the bin so everything has to fit inside otherwise we have to take large boxes to the recycle center. Now if you wan to keep one box assembled and put all the flattened ones inside I’d do that, but otherwise flatten those suckers.
Like Bonny, we have city-wide, curbside, “single stream” recycling here. We get a big 96-gallon recycling bin, and they pick it up every two weeks. We can put anything recyclable inside the bin . . . boxes don’t NEED to be flattened. But if we don’t flatten our boxes, we can’t fit as much into our bin!!!! So Tom is the Official Box Flattner at our house! (He is BIG on efficiency of space, so that’s a no-brainer for us.) (It helps that our recycling service will ONLY take what’s in the bin. They won’t pick up anything OUTSIDE the bin. . . )
Hi Kat! Glad to see your toe is not broken! No question here – flatten the darn box! 🙂