But I wanted to comment to those who keep saying “recycle, recycle!” – I don’t know about Trent, but having grown up in a small town in the midwest (Missouri), I know that finding places to recycle can be IMPOSSIBLE. And I mean that literally – we lived 1.5 hours from Kansas City and 4 hours from St. Louis, and STILL TO THIS DAY, the only recycling that anyplace in the area will take is soda cans (and the like). Now, obviously, since it was a small town area (with LOTS of farming), people did PERSONALLY reuse containers, but as far as actually getting rid of containers, it’s near impossible. Like I said, I don’t know about the area Trent lives in, but before yelling “recycle”, let’s please keep in mind that some areas in this country just don’t have the resources to DO anything like that. Hence debates on trash bags.

Like I said, we use Force Flex, we don’t generate MUCH trash, but we LOVE the Force Flex because a lot of containers have hard or pointy edges. You might get a hole in the FF, but you won’t get an all-over-the-carpet-as-you-run-for-the-door mess. Definitely an improvement over the cheapies!

1. I am a recycling fool.
2. I use Costco trash bags. However, I don’t pay retail for them. Instead, I wait till Costco has a coupon for them and I load up. They’re usually for $3 off/box, so the savings add up!

Now we use plastic grocery bags as liners in our small trash cans. We reduce, reuse, recycle, and compost, so we generate less than 20 gallons of trash a week. If I had to buy bags, I’d look for some that have recycled plastic content, to close the loop.

Even though I almost always remember to take reusable bags with me to the grocery store, the plastic bags still accumulate.

We too tried to buy cheap bags before, and they were so thin. I think they may have had twist ties in the box too.

Another related point — I use the zipper top food storage bags. My mother buys the dollar store brand because they’re “so much cheaper”… yes, but out of a box of twenty bags, I’ve found 7 or 8 of them to be slit right beneath the seal. Not much of a deal if you have to throw them out right off the bat.

I’m not trying to be holier-than-thou, I’m just continually surprised at how much rubbish people actually generate – and how much they’ll spend on disposing of it.

And as for the syrup bottle, my understanding (although I’ve re-read it and seen I was wrong) was that the bottle was broken to begin with – hence throwing out a bottle with syrup left, and not cleaning & recycling it.

And as for the syrup bottle, my understanding (although I’ve re-read it and seen I was wrong) was that the bottle was broken to begin with – hence throwing out a bottle with syrup left, and not cleaning & recycling it.

I buy name brand dish washing soap at the $1 Store and pour it half each into 2 bottles and fill up the rest of the way with water. You still squirt into the dish pan as you normally due and your $1 bottle of dish soap lasts for double the use. I buy Dawn, Ivory, etc.

I use few tins and when I do, I wash them and try, if possible to flatten them so more fit in the trash.

Now, onto the critics:
- For those going nuts over the audacity of buying trash bags (and the environmental impact) and using the grocery store ones instead, why aren’t you bringing your own bags to the grocery store?
- For those wondering why a syrup bottle is in the trash, trash/recycling pickup varies tremendously across the country. Where I live they pick up 1-7, but other towns do 1-3, some none at all. When we go to my parent’s house, there is NO recycling. It feels somehow dirty to throw away recyclables, but there’s no alternative available.
- For those using a disposal, many municipalities are considering banning them because their waste is harder to deal with.

I’m continually amazed at how much “better than thou” this blog generates.