Recycling with www.recyclebank.com

I have been recycling items for a few years with the company that also provides our trash service. We have a plastic bin that I put in newspaper, aluminum and steel cans.

Recently, I stopped setting out the aluminum cans in that recycle bin, as I discovered of another way to recycle them, that a business could benefit from them. I began to donate the aluminum cans to the humane society in my city. The humane society have placed large cages up in various parking lots around town that you can place your cans into.

I have been depositing all my cans in the chain link cages, since I noticed them. The aluminum goes to a good cause, as it's a great way for the society to collect some extra money.

A lot of people are donating their cans to the society, as the cage I always go to is constantly half full of bags, and loose cans. People must really care about the humane society top give them their cans, or maybe they don't want to drive out of their way to take the cans to a recycling center. It seems that in this day and age, it's not worth the drive to the center, considering the cost of gas, and the small amount of money that you are compensated for the aluminum.

The cages are set up near neighborhoods, so for some people, it's just a short walk across the street to place their cans inside of them.

Quite a few years ago, I would take our aluminum to the recycling center. It was a long drive from my house, and I had to have a lot of bags full of cans to receive even a little bit of money. At that point in time, there weren't any other places to turn in aluminum cans to be recycled. I would wait a long time to go there, until I had a lot of bags full, and that in itself would result in the bags sitting in the garage for a long period of time. I would have to let them accumulate, until I had a sizable amount of bags to turn in. I had to have enough to justify the long drive to the recycling center. It just didn't seem worth it, for what little money I got back in return for them. Also, the time that it took to get there, and the amount of gas that I used up in the process, I felt like it might have been a waste of time overall. But, I kept going, as I cared enough about recycling, and I didn't want to throw them in the trash.

There seemed to be a little voice inside of me that kept reminding me that it was better in the long run for the environment to care that the aluminum would be recycled, than to waste it by placing it out in the garbage.

At that time, we had a lot more cans that we do now. We drank more pop, and I had more pet food cans.

At the end of 2008, I received a letter that told of a new recycling service that would be implemented through our trash service. The plastic bin that we already had, would soon be replaced with a special cart. The new recycling service is wonderful. It's an eye opener of just how much can be recycled. We are able to place more of a variety of things to be recycled in it, and it's a great incentive towards seeing the importance of the awareness to recycle.

The letter arrived about a month before the new service would go into effect. I immediately began saving recyclable items, and putting them inside bags, and keeping them in my garage. The bags really began to pile up, and we noticed how the amount of trash had dissipated. The new program accepted more things to recycle, than the plastic bin that we had.

We had plenty of room inside of our garage for bags of items to be recycled, so it wasn't a problem to accumulate a large amount of of things to place out, to be picked up.

The letter that came about the program was through the company that was our trash service. It was a brief explanation of what the changes were that were about to take place. We would earn recycle bank points for recyclable items that we had. We would soon receive a large 95 gallon wheeled recycle cart to put our things in. It resembles a trash cart.

The cart is equipped with a radio frequency identification tag, that is identified to your house address through a special number. There is no need to separate the recyclable items, as they all can be placed together in this new cart.

When we had the small plastic bin, the items needed to be separated accordingly. It wasn't a problem to separate things, as I only put out newspapers, and steel cans.

The truck that picks up the new cart, reads the I.D. tag on it, and the truck weighs the cart. This data is transmitted to my new recycle bank account where I receive recycle bank points. We were given the option of registering our new account either by telephone, or online. I chose to register our account online, and I was able to read more about the program. It was a simple process to enroll our name and address to match the activation code we received in yet another letter.

The account needed to be activated in order to earn and redeem awards through the recycle bank points that will accumulate, depending on the weight of recyclables that we set out in the cart for pickup, every two weeks.

The awards are essentially rewards you receive to redeem towards purchasing things from businesses that participate in this program.

The website is www.recyclebank.com, and it's convenient to have all of the information that you need for the program at one place.

Some of the businesses in the awards program offer dollars off, or percentages off on purchases through their websites. There is also a chart that breaks down the dates your recycles were picked up, and the points that you earned, according to the weight. It also presents a column that will mark whether the points were redeemed.

I am looking forward to redeeming my award points towards merchandise. This is a great and easy way to recycle your goods. I'm excited that this concept has been implemented, and I am Iooking forward to watching my points add up.