Recycle and trash decluttering

This week the declutter challenge was recycling and trash cans.  I feel as though we do fairly well on that, all things considering.  Austin has a pretty progressive recycling program.  It's all single stream, meaning we don't separate out anything.  We have two dumpsters provided for us to use - one for trash, the other for recycleables.  And the little area they live in needed some cleaning up.

They live in this nook behind the photinia at the corner of our house.  You never see them from the street.

The patio pavers were left over from a long ago project, so I placed them here so the cans wouldn't sit in mud...but its pretty messy back here and could use a raking.

 I raked and sprayed the stones off.  When they were just about dry I put the cans back and moved on to the next project: breaking down several large boxes to recycle from a garage project I had also started. {because projects always travel in groups...}

It's not fancy, but no one but us ever sees it!

Austin picks up yard waste weekly.  In addition, there are a couple of times a year they will come get big limbs, and big trash.  Big trash happens next week starting on Monday.  The best thing to do is get your big trash out the week before.  Junk dealers and neighbors will take unwanted stuff off your hands.  All you have to do is haul it out to the curb! 

About every three months or so I go out to the garage and pitch a fit over the way it looks.  A couple of hours later, I have straightened it up.  But we seriously own too much stuff.  I have talked about that many times before on this blog! Usually, I am late to the big trash game but this year I managed to toss a roll of vinyl flooring from YEARS ago, a broken down bike, a vacuum cleaner, some landscape lighting, a large broken pot, a futon, and two barstools.  But there is so much more in here we should get rid of.  Hubby does like his schtuffs.

 

Part of the problem is the stuff from the two grown folk who have left their belongings here.  Someday they will HAVE to come get it as we will not live in this house forever and we are not moving all of their stuff with us!  For now, I love that you can walk into the garage from the outside.  You couldn't earlier today...

I even cleared a mini path back to the lawn sprinkler system control box, which you can barely see on the wall (gray box).  And all the scrap wood got straightened up, too.  I emptied some of my terra cotta pots which had just about dead plants in them.  I will clean them up in the spring and pot some new plants.  Then I called it a day.  It's super hard being the only one decluttering here, but gradually I am going to get everyone on board with it!