OT: paper recycling bags

[FastforaSlowGuy]

We dispose of our recycling in a large 55gal rolling trash bin for curbside pickup. The trash company seems to dump about 70% into the truck, and 30% on our lawn. Recycling is loose in the can. As much as I enjoy my Friday night ritual of hunting down old yogurt containers, I’m thinking that bagging the stuff would largely solve the issue. But my town has said - in all caps - that I shouldn’t put my recycling in plastic bags, and the only paper bags I’ve seen are the grocery size (too small) and yard waste size (doesn’t fit in the kitchen). It seems that a kitchen trashcan sized paper bag would be perfect but I have found anything out there. Anyone know a source? Any other awesome ideas?


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[saf-t]

My first thought would be to talk to someone at the DPW about getting everything into the truck. That said, I've kept a leaf bag on the back porch and dumped stuff into it during the week when I've had a lot of stuff to unload and it wouldn't fit into our blue bin. Have you thought about brown paper shopping bags? We have newspapers in one of them, and most everything else in the bin...........

[pdmtong]

presumably the recycle is all mixed and the lighter materials just fly out when the bin is inverted to dump. maybe you should just keep a separate bin for the lighter things, and loosely wrap them in a newspaper then put that in the 55gal.

alternatively, you could buy a bio-bag (via amazon, etc.). I use their dog bags for poop pick-up (the newspaper bags I used to use now get recycled at the plastic bag recycle at my grocery store). Bio-bags do not have the tear strength of plastic so if you use in kitchen plan on tying off while in the waste container and dumping, not pulling it out of the container.

http://biobagusa.com/products/retail-products/

PS...brown paper grocery bags now cost $0.10 around here....

[Peter P.]

I'll assume you don't have a problem with glass or metal.

Use paper leaf bags for your plastics, but don't put the bag out with the trash until it's full otherwise the cost per bag becomes excessive. Those bags are 30 gallon so they'll hold a lot.

For paper recycling, tie everything in a bundle with TWINE, which is recyclable, otherwise use the leaf bags as above.

Try Googling "paper recycling bags and you may find a cost effective solution.

[Steve in SLO]

If you have a steady supply of cardboard boxes (Hello, Amazon Prime), you can put lighter items into them and stack the boxes in your recycling bin. I have also used broken down boxes to line the walls of the bin, making the contents less likely to fly when the bin is inverted.

[FastforaSlowGuy]

We are fortunate to have single stream recycling so I don’t have to sort. I’m currently using a kitchen trash can (unlined) with overflow in paper grocery bags and old Amazon boxes. I was sort of hoping for a simpler solution along the lines of lawn bags but sized for a typical kitchen can (and cheaper). A google search just kept turning up various plastic bags that are marketed as recycling bags, but those are precisely what my Town does not want me to use. Seems like the existing system is pretty much as good as it gets at the moment. I anyone here runs a paper products company, maybe worth some market research into 13gal paper bags.


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[Seramount]

no particular ideas for the OP, but I'm constantly dismayed at the number of people here who put recycle items in plastic trash bags even tho the bins have instructions on them that clearly state to NOT do this.

according to the municipal waste office, once offloaded at the MRF, plastic bags are removed from the recycle stream prior to sorting and sent to the landfill.

such a massive fail...

[Jaybee]

What is your waste pickup person/truck doing that scatters the recyclables everywhere? I also have single-stream recycling pickup out of a 96 gallon big plastic bin - every load includes plenty of yogurt containers and other light plastic and I rarely pick up a stray piece from my yard.

The best solution I've seen here is to keep a separate lawn size paper bag in the garage or wherever and load the light plastics in that until it fills up. Sucks to sort though.

[Bentley]

Seems like all you need is to use a pair of scissors and cut the top to fit the waste bin. Or why not just put the big bag inside your drum and roll the top on the day of trash pick up so there is no "sprinkling" of recyclables in your yard.

Ray