Generally speaking, houses are cleaner for me having been there
You are welcome out here anytime!!!
I was so happy when our complex started recycling. After living in Alameda where we had green waste, food waste, and waste waste - no dividing up my trash was driving me nuts.
It's rude to make disdainful remarks, period, when you're someone's guest.
See, I would just ask people like that how often they replace their electronics, how often they fly, or what kind of car they drive, etc.
I would just ask people like that to get the fuck out of my house.
I used paper plates and plastic utensils for Plei's brunch, but mostly because I still have some from years ago, and tossing them without using them makes even less sense than using them. Some day they will run out, and I can use real stuff.
It's rude to make disdainful remarks, period, when you're someone's guest.
This. (And needless to say, also rude to go through their cabinets for dishes you approve of. WTF, meara's "friends"?!?!)
I am very spoiled living where even if we don't compost, we can add food-touched paper products to our big green bin and Oakland takes it and composts. But I've also lived in places where I had to save my aluminum cans separately and drive them to a recycling plant (summers in Nebraska - my grandfather was STRICT about recycling back when it was not very popular). I wish more towns and cities would make it easier by having curbside programs. I know it's common where I live, but not so much in other locales.
We have single stream recycling - most things just go into the bins all together - and curbside. We try to recycle as much as possible - it's funny when Em calls us out on stuff.
We don't have composting in our township, which is a shame. I would love to get my HOA to get some of those barrel ones or set up some composting areas in the sub, but 90%of the residents are over 75 (how we ended up in a retirement community I don't know.) and wouldn't use it.
smonster, thanks for the link to Preserve. I'm buying some of their stuff right now.
We have single-stream recycling now. Makes things so much easier, and of course tons more stuff gets recycled than when recycling depended on people actually separating their garbage.
I'd like to start composting, but I don't have room for a huge compost bin - too much of my yard is sloped too steeply to put anything on. Anyone know of a small, one-person's-garbage-worth composter?