Recycling Center for Boys

I really apologize for taking so long to finally post a new blog! Yesterday I took my first day off in almost six weeks (seriously... seven days a week for almost six weeks)! This job has really trained me to be productive because I could not sit still. Everything around my house that has been neglected finally got some attention. It felt so wonderful to get so much done! Major projects included:

1. Taking reycling out to convenience center
2. Test homemade backpacking fire starter (see post below)
3. Screw kitchen trash can to wall so TG will quit knocking it over!
4. Create home recycling center for my roommates

My roommates (3 guys and 2 dogs) have made a mess of my recycling attempts. The guys don't rinse out their beer bottles before putting them in a bag, which brings flies indoor, and the dogs (well, mostly just my dog) gets into all of the plastic and chews it to shreds. So, here's what I did:

Dog Issue: I went to Walgreen's and bought some cheapo laundry hampers. They are 2 for $5. I bought one for paper and #1 & 2 plastic, one for all other recyclables and 3 for glass. The hampers are tall enough to keep the dog out, and for safe measure I placed a board over top of it so she can't stick her nose in there.















Boy Issue: The beer bottles tend to stay around the house for a long time because when it comes time to recycle, no one wants to stick their hand into the stinky bag and separate the three kinds of glass (brown, green, and clear). Some boys just don't learn and will never rinse out the glass, so I created an outdoor recycling center for them. Here's how I did it:

What You Need:
Scrap wood and bricks or cinder blocks
Drill
Hand Saw
Screws
Small hinges (3)
Pipe fixture (3)
Laundry hampers (3)

1. For some reason I have some scrap ply wood, cinder blocks and random wood pieces around my house (probably from a construction project over 10 years ago). I used a hand saw to cut off a 20"x45" plank of wood. I screwed this onto the hand railing of my patio. One side of the plank was proped up by house and the third side was proped up by two cinder blocks and a 4'x4' chuck.
   
2. The laundry hampers will line up underneath the wood plank. Cut a hole over each hamper. To keep the rain out, create a small door to go over the holes.
3. Using some of the left over wood from the ply wood, cut squares just larger than the holes you've made to drop bottles through. Preferably, make the squares larger than a glass bottle. These pieces will become the doors to each hamper. Using your hinges (just over $1 for two at Home Depot) attach the doors over the drop holes. If you want to be fancy (like me), purchase some pipe fixtures large enough to go over a glass bottle. You can then use one of each color bottle as the door handle to the correct colored bins.
4. I then used a second sheet of ply wood to place on the outside of the new recycling center so that wind and rain could not blow through the back side. (See photo above)

Viola! You have yourself a boy- (and girl-) proof recycling center for all your stinky beer bottles. If they can't put the right colored bottle in the right hole... I just don't know what I'm going to do about them!