More Failures for YOU to learn by! You're Welcome.

I had written a blog which I published on December 16, 2012 under the name "TCSWMD -- What Would Tompkins County Solid Waste Management Division recycle?" In this blog, there is a link to the recycling guide for Tompkins County. Like this; TC Recycling Guide.  In the section of the guide, Additional Recyclables Accepted at the RSWC (recycling and solid waste center), it says that Textiles are accepted. Textiles are any cloth or goods produced by weaving, knitting, or felting, according to Dictionary.com.  

Well, I went there, happy as a hooker at a fishnet factory 

happy hooker or solitary sadist?

with my garbage bag full of old scraps of jeans and felted wool, cotton cuttings and acetate blends from old bridesmaid dresses only to be told that the only fabric they accept is clean, wearable clothing.  I was as sad as a solitary sadist. 
I still think that our recycling center is amazing, but the glint off the solar panel is a little dustier, as they say. Ok, no one says that, but I'm trying to coin a new phrase, so give me a break.  
Is the brochure misleading? Um, DUH!
 It definitely should have said, "Clean, Wearable Clothing" instead of "Textiles." If I had clean, wearable clothing, my first thought for recycling them is certainly not the RSWC! Goodwill, The Salvation Army, Mama Goose, and Trader K's; these are places I think of for donating clothes.  So what the hell am I supposed to do with all these cut up old clothes!?! I am tired of making shitty crafts out of them and I want them out of my life.  For years I have tried making cute little handbags and Christmas stockings and dog sweaters and shirts and skirts and patching holes in jeans with varying degrees of success. 

Everyone's a critic.

My dear Sam will say that I'm very good at these things but frankly, I'm sick of all that shit. I want a fresh start in my craft room. A fresh start begins with a good cleaning.  I gathered up all the nice sections of fabric and pre-cut quilting pieces and gave them to my mother, who is an avid quilter.  

I <3 U, Mom!

I will probably get many of those cloths back in blanket form.  This is ok, blankets are always good to have around, especially when they're made by someone you love, it's the disassembled form that I don't want around. The problem is, the stuff in the bag. You know, the bag I was taking to be recycled, before I was snatched out of my fantasy land where everything stays out of the landfill?  This stuff is just about useless to anyone except someone just like me.  
Maybe I'll put it on Freecycle and see if there are any crafty people left out there. 

Ahhh, Freecycle! But that's a story for another day...

Until then ---

Stay Trashy, Ithaca!

xoxo

TCSWMD -- What would Tompkins County Solid Waste Management Division recycle?

So I bet you're thinking, it's been a few weeks and I haven't heard anything from Trashy Woman. She's probably run out of ideas or decided that it was too hard to reduce her garbage output to zero and gave up. Well, naysayers, you could not be farther from the truth. I have been hard at work doing research, recycling, composting, hanging out with friends, working at my full time job and generally being patient.  Good garbage reduction takes time.  I can't just go all willy-nilly and buy all the different flushable dog poo bags that are out there (That would be exciting, though, wouldn't it?)! So, while I'm waiting for the funding to come through on my latest project (that would be the paycheck after I pay the mortgage...) allow me to indulge myself with discussing something in which I am already successful. It will help me with the whole patience thing.

A boring picture of my paper recycling

Recycling in Tompkins County is a wondrous marvel of modern science. Have you seen the latest Tompkins County Recycling Guide? I can't believe the changes that have been made in just the last two years. You can recycle so many different things, it's not just bottles and cans and newspapers these days, no sir!  The curbside pick up for residential areas has a dizzying array of acceptable items now.

3 jars of peanut butter in this shot, cleaned out by my dog

Some recent additions to the growing list of recyclables include;
-jar lids
-plastic flower pots
-small, hard plastics, like toys
-take-out containers
-hard cover books

These items are quite a boon to avid recycle-rs  like myself.  In fact, I just tossed an old pair of sunglasses in the bin that had a broken arm. And flower pots! Wow, that was a big one for me. You can't imagine how many flower pots I used to throw away every day at my workplace. I used to try to save them and donate them every year to the big local plant sale but they just build up and take up space and you get to a certain point where you're just like, ok, enough damn pots sitting around in boxes around here, Trashy, this is a business, and it needs to look like one. Oh, did I mention I work at a flower shop with a huge plant selection and that we make our own dishgardens on-site? Lots o' pots.

Not my favorite book

As for hard cover books, I've had a few that were so bad they deserved to never be read again, but I've always passed them on for someone else to decide their fate. Who am I to criticize what someone thought was good enough to publish? One woman's trash, after all, is another woman's beach read. Books that have been given to me that are too embarrassing to even try to sell to the used book store usually go to the laundromat or bus stop. I like to leave them anonymously around town and hope that someone will take them home and enjoy them more than I did. 

So there are some things that appear to be fit for the bin, like the ice cream cone and mushroom foam containers pictured below.  Notice the recycling symbol and I believe it was a #6 stamped on there.  However, Styrofoam is still not allowed. According to the Tompkins County guidelines, #1 through #7 plastics are bin worthy. So, I threw them in. 

Recyclable or not?

I had a wonderful conversation with a friend last night who suggested we should take a tour of the recycling facility if they allow it. It would be very interesting to see how the single-stream recycling works, how different items get separated and what happens to everything once it's been organized. Where does it go to get turned into all the things that are made from our garbage? 

I can't wait to find out!