Recycling-one would think it would be easy

For the last year, my darling daughter has asked me to recycle (thank you Noggin..who said TV was bad?) However...we are out of space in my house. OUT..completely. The few spaces that a 'recycling center' COULD go would be accessible to dogs. I am TRYING to make our house more presentable...so random bins under desks won't work.  Can't put them in the backyard under the eve...dogs.  Can't put them on the side of the house under the eve...raccoons, totally random dogs and opossums.  I just gave up on the idea really.

I recently became friends with who we lovingly have deemed "crunchy". We love you Crunchy Gypsy Mom!  Her crunchiness is slightly rubbing off on me..not a lot..because I'm still mostly the traditional southern girl..thank goodness she still likes me despite this.  So this has resurrected the whole "what to do about recycling" problem.  I remember having a recycling bin for a few years while we lived in this very same town. They came right to your house to get your recycling! Imagine that!  That program got lost in the financial shuffle of city politics...sadly enough.

What we are left with are sporadic 'trailers'. I say sporadic because sometimes they are there and sometimes they are not. One is less than a mile from my house...in walking distance. I would like to say that we can load everything up in the wagon and go and drop it off. However...I'm in a bit of a pickle about WHAT we can bring there.  Lets call this "Drop off point A".

There is another place that is in driving distance...about 40 minutes from my house..and we are there about once a week..maybe every 2 at least.  Introducing "Drop off point B".

Lets go back to Drop off point A. From the above pictures, you can see that not much can be left here. Aluminum cans, plastic, and one can only guess that the long one in the middle is for paper (newsprint to be specific.)  Well...by looking at it..plastic is ruled out. No more space to even stuff any in. It leads you to believe that it isn't emptied very often. People feel the need to leave their 'trash' outside the bin. I'm sure the private business that this sits in front of just loves this.

So...being new to recycling and all....I have questions. For the 'paper' (because we aren't all that positive that's what goes in this slot)...do they just mean newsprint? Can I drop my printer paper in there that we printed on and no longer need? Can I drop my 'junk mail' in it? What about magazines? Sale papers?  WHAT KIND OF PAPER CAN I PUT IN HERE?  The aluminum cans are pretty much self explanatory. Plastic? If I COULD put plastic in here..what kind of plastic. Can I put my rinsed out bottles of fabric softener in here? What about plastic grocery bags? Bubble wrap?

Do you see my problem? No explanation is left here...no signs. NONE. I'm left to guess.

So maybe  I choose to go to Drop off point B.  You can enlarge the picture here to read the sign that's there.  It leaves quite a bit more explanation thankfully.  I definitely have fewer questions about this one. You don't even have to sort the recycling to put it in here!

So what's a girl to do? Do I sort it out and hopefully be able to bring it to Drop off point A?  Drop off point A doesn't accept Tin...which we still have quite a bit of.  They also don't accept cardboard...I also have a lot of this.  I have to sort it all to bring it here and only about half of our recycling can go here.

So I'm left to bring it to Drop off point B.  Good choice. I don't even have to sort it to bring it there.
However..I still don't have a large enough place to store this recycling stuff.

What do I do as a result? Store it on my dining room table...doesn't everybody?

 If you have any answers to my questions...feel free to contribute.