Curbside recycling apparently requires constant vigilance

I am grateful my city provides curbside pick-up of trash, recyclables, and yard waste. It's a convenience too easily taken for granted (though of course you do pay for the privilege).

For many years, I have been in charge of waste management in our house. I generally collect everything and wheel it to the curb on Sunday afternoons, and any time there's a recyclable item in the kitchen, it's usually me who takes it to the temporary staging bin in the garage.

"Temporary staging bin" sounds very official, but it's really just an old recycling container from a previous service provider. It's easier to open the door from the mud room into the garage and toss an item into that container rather than walk all the way outside to the big wheeled recycling container to drop something there. Once or twice a week I'll empty the smaller, temporary bin into the larger container.

Not that you needed to know any of that.

Anyway, it came to my attention a year or two ago that Kimble, our waste management/recycling provider, will only recycle certain types of plastics. Other plastics need to go into the regular trash container.

Specifically, Kimble accepts plastics labeled #1 or #2. Higher numbers cannot be recycled.

Actually (and my understanding of the process is admittedly limited), I think they can recycle higher numbers, but our city's contract with Kimble only allows for recycling of #1 and #2 plastics. I assume recycling the higher-numbered plastics costs more, but I don't know that for sure.

What this means, of course, is that I'm constantly checking the bottom of plastic jugs and containers for that little number surrounded by the three arrows arranged in a triangle shape. Again, 1s and 2s are good. They go into the recycling bin. All others are destined for a landfill, I guess.

This has led me to realize that many things I've dropped into the recycling over the years will not in fact be recycled, and are presumably picked out of there and dumped into the general flow of trash by Kimble service workers who (and I'm guessing here) probably hate all of us for not paying closer attention to what goes into which container.

Chi-Chi's salsa, of which we consume a lot and therefore produce many empty plastic jars? That's a #7. I used to recycle it, now I throw it out.

Milk jugs? #2s. They're OK.

Greek yogurt containers? The ones we get are #5. No dice.

I don't want to pat myself on the back or anything, but I'm going to wager that a relatively low percentage of my fellow Wickliffe citizens pay this much attention to getting the plastic recyclables right.

So yes, I do want both a cookie and a medal. The medal can be made of plastic. #1 or #2 only, please.