I got an interesting note from the city in the mail the other day, talking about what Ottawa is good at recycling, and what they could be doing better. We’re good at newspapers and corregated cardboard, but not so good at aluminum foil and tetra packs.
One of the worst things on the list was “fine household paper,” meaning things like computer printouts, bills, receipts, or bank statements. I think it’s great that these things can be recycled, but I’m having trouble actually putting them in the bin. I keep envisioning my bank statements blowing all over the neighbourhood — not exactly what you want the world to see.
I guess we could shred everything first…would that be safe enough? We actually used to shred everything like that before we even put it in the garbage can, we were so paranoid, but lately I’ve gotten lazy and just toss it in whole. Shredding might make it less readable for the recycling bin, but I think the little bits are more likely to fly around the street than whole pieces of paper. I hate to think of all that paper lying in a landfill somewhere, but at the same time, I hate to think of someone finding a receipt and using the credit card number on it to make some eBay orders.
What do you think? Is this stuff safe for your recycle bin? Shredded or unshredded?
TurtleHead 
What? We can recycle aluminum foil and tetra packs??? I had no idea!
As for the paper, I shred and then throw it out. I thought you couldn’t put your paper in plastic bags, so I couldn’t see a way to dispose of the shredded paper without a mess. Ooo! Maybe I could get some paper bags from the grocery store for this purpose. Hm…
Ooohh…paper bags! That is brilliant! Then you can put all your shredded stuff in a bag and roll it up. I think I will try this…maybe with just some sandwich bags to start and see how it goes. The shredding part will actually be the hard part — our shredder is so loud, we don’t like to use it when the kids are sleeping, but it’s a hard job to do without them wanting to be involved.
And yes, you can recycle foil, as well as foil take-out containers (like from Chinese food). Tetra packs for sure, along with milk/juice cartons (in your blue box).
Although it wasn’t on the list, at the Captain’s school, they put plastic bags in their recycling, so I’m going to look into that and see if they can go in as well.
Looks like you can’t put plastic bags in your blue box but you can take grocery bags (any kind) to any Loeb store for recycling.
Link here.
and as has already discovered, you can put the shreddings in paper bags. That is actually what our city requires for shredded paper.
I think that shredding the stuff first is definitely important, with all the identity theft out there. We just have a “straight” shredder, but there are cross-shredders, too, which prevent everyone but the most bored from being able to reconstruct your original documents. I also find the shredder too loud and only use it when MAD’s not sleeping. I think you can buy quiet shredders.
When we first got our shredder many years ago, we had a filing cabinet full of bank statements and the like which needed to be disposed of. It took a few days, because the shredder kept overheating and turning off, but I finally got through all the documents.
Your post reminded me of how, if I remember correctly, you and used to safely dispose of old credit cards by cutting them into tiny pieces and spreading the pieces in varying trash cans throughout the house!
I take this approach:
– anything without a name, address or account number gets thrown in the recycling
– anything that is chock full of detailed info, gets shredded and then I put the whole bag of shreddings in the recycling. But I use plastic bags so from now on I will try paper (thanks fame_throwa!). It’s hard when you live in a condo to know what is being accepted without some kind of feedback loop with the sanitation workers.
– anything with a name, address or account number in say, one or two places, I tear that part out of the paper and shred it, then recycle the rest whole. This is great for when you get some junk mail that is otherwise completely harmless except it includes your name and address.
Awhile back we started recycling paper towel and toilet paper tubes, which also diverts a lot from regular garbage. Huge pet peeve of mine though is that Toronto has stopped recycling plastic bags a few years ago! We have so many grocery bags that sometimes I have to throw out an entire “bag of bags” to prevent a plastic avalanche every time I go into the cabinets under the sink.
Ha! I was just about the reply to your last post that Loeb will take them. (I just found that out yesterday.)
Oh man, I can’t believe you remember about the credit cards. Don’t tell but recently I had to get rid of an old bank card and I cut it into teeny pieces but put them all in the same bag. Gack!
We also have a shredder for the same reason — major filing cabinet clear out from about three years ago. I remember we used to shred in front of the TV at night (with the closed captioning on, as that thing is LOUD) and it took a couple of weeks to get through it all. I predict now that we are committed to shredding and recycling this stuff, about a year from now I’ll be going through the same multi-day process :).
As mentioned above, you can take plastic bags here to Loeb stores (as well as a few smaller health-food stores) for recycling. They don’t take things like baggies or milk bags, just grocery-type bags, but it’s something.
Back when I was pregnant with the Captain I started going into major horde mode for plastic bags. I kept all I could get my hands on because I was convinced we’d need them for diaper disposal. Eventually made me get rid of most of them — and when we moved here, two years ago, we got rid of all of my stash. Since then I find we are sometimes completely out of bags, and I actually had to buy a box of kitchen garbage bags (gasp!) to use, because we generate so much garbage now.
So, maybe you should think about building up your own stash :).
Also thanks for the recycling tips…I’m going to follow your rules for a while and we’ll see how big the pile of “to recycle” stuff can get before I get around to actually shredding it!