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My brother in law runs a small farm and told me my recycling bin is "just a feelings box" and I can't stop thinking about it
We were at his place near Ames last month and I made some comment about how good it felt to fill the blue bin every week. He laughed and said most of it gets sorted, shipped, and burned anyway, and that the real cuts happen way upstream of my kitchen. I pushed back hard, but the number he threw at me stuck, something like 9 percent of plastic ever gets recycled. So now I'm stuck asking what's actually worth doing at home versus what just makes me feel better. Has anyone found a real local thing to put time into instead of the bin, like a repair cafe or a city compost program?
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the_viola12h ago
A buddy of mine got the same speech from his cousin and it bugged him for weeks. He ended up calling the city and found out our compost program takes way more than people think, including pizza boxes and paper towels, so he signed up and now the blue bin barely fills up. Then he started going to a repair cafe over in the next town once a month, mostly to get his toaster fixed, but he says half the value is just watching guys breathe new life into junk instead of tossing it. Sounds corny but he swears it changed how he shops, he buys less and fixes more. The bin is a small piece of the puzzle, so pick one local thing and go deep on it instead of stressing over every yogurt cup. What did your brother in law say about the stuff he does on the farm side, does he have any tips that actually work?
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