I got a "little" behind in my newspaper reading - well more than a little (LOL), and I have to throw out what seems like a ton of old newspapers. My city has recycling laws and they have to be put in crystal clear trash liners before pickup.
I ordered several hundred from a very reputable site that advertised clear bags, and the shipment was prompt. However, the bags were more of the "cloudy" clear kind. They sort of looked like the type you would get in a s supermarket - only alot larger. The bags need to be of the crystal clear variety - sort of like plastic wrap - only a little thicker.
I'm looking for 45-55 gallon bags. I've done Google searches and see bags that are marked clear, but the prices are quite for 100 - 200 bags. Before I start calling the web vendors to make sure the bags are really clear, I was hoping that someone else has experience with purchasing them.
Are these some sort of biodegradable bag? Usually the last thing they want is plastic mixed with paper.
In my area there are two accepted methods. One is to use a recycling container which is nothing but a squared plastic bucket or put the newspaper out in brown paper bags.
If you have that much paper maybe you can pay a fee to have the truck make a special stop and just toss it all in at one time? That might even be less expensive and simpler because you wouldn't need to buy or fill bags.
Husky has a line of leaf bags that are clear (as opposed to translucent); I have a couple of boxes of the 45 gallon size. They're available from Home Depot and similar places.
First, contact the city and ask what is required. If you have enough papers for 100 bags, you might be better off having a truck pickup.
The bags you want are classed as "micromole" and are slightly cloudy clear bags that use a minimum of high density plastic. Wholesale, 100 of them on a roll cost about $15 or less.
The other alternative is low density bags, and these are much more expensive, and rarely clear.
One would think. Our area's trash companies have a similar requirement: clear bags for yard debris. My husband and I searched Lowes and Home Depot and even local grocery stores and couldn't find them anywhere. Everybody only stocks the black plastic bags.
Related peeve: overly specific recycling/trash rules. DH is a Good Citizen who tries to follow the rules. He was annoyed when I told him that the trash man just tossed the yard debris into the truck with the trash (I could see out the window during breakfast). I also think it's ridiculous that they recycle plastic-A but not plastic-B and cat food tins are acceptable but the lids we peel off them aren't. Plastic bags are acceptable except for plastic grocery bags, which they apparently expect you to take back to the store for recycling. Oh, and last year this angered BOTH of us: during the fall season when they were actively picking up leaves (only bagged, mind you, no fancy vacuum trucks here), we discovered that they will only pick up a maximum of 3 bags of leaves per house per week. In lovely deciduous-forested northern Virginia, this was NOT acceptable. (Our yards full of ankle-deep leaves came to a total of around 20 bags. We bought a chipper-shredder after that. Oh, and fired and hired 4 different trash companies in the space of 3 months.)
Thats a requirement of the recyclers. Often mixed recyclables are simply taken to the landfill at a cost because it is too tedious/expensive to separate them. The next county over has a good plan though. The recycling center is manned with prisoners who get to separate the stuff.
Have you considered mulching? That way you have some great organic material for the garden or shrubs.
Ditto on the mulching -- I don't ever bag leaves, and we have quite a few (not forest by any stretch, but about a dozen large trees on our 8/10 acre property and many smaller ones). Mid-late October I mow the yard one last time very thoroughly wiith our mulching mower -- sometimes passing over sections 2-3 times to really grind up the leaves. If you look closely it looks a little messy in places, but we're in MN, and it will be covered by snow in no time anyway. By spring, you don't see any leaf residue (except for new ones that fell after I did the mulching, and the first mowing of the spring takes care of those).
I did the same with our old property. The year after we sold it, I noticed the new owners had about 20-30 bags of leaves at the curb. I just shrugged at the wastfullness of it all...
snipped-for-privacy@hiwaay.net (Gary Heston) wrote in news:12i10iciuu2gt23 @corp.supernews.com:
First of all, thanks to everyone who responded. To the person who said they have to tie up their newspapers, they better check the local web site for their sanitation dept., as most recycling laws today state that hard cardboard should be tied up, and newspapers, along with mail and wastepaper have to be put in clear bags.
I see that the bags that are picked up by our Dept. of Sanitation are either clear blue - for plastic bottles and jugs or completely clear (like glass clear) for newspapers and light cardboard.
Would translucent mean "crystal clear"? I know that when most of the sites refer to clear bags, they mean a cloudy sort of clear. I'm beginning to understand that the crystal clear bags are described on janitorial supply sites as "natural".
Unless anyone here has ordered these bags before and is positive as to what will be delivered, I'm going to have to call before ordering. The problem is that unless you speak to someone in the warehouse, there's a chance that the sales rep will never know.
As far as Home Depot and Costco goes, they charge top dollar for everything. Yes, even Costco. By buying quantity, people think they are getting a break there, but if you break down the price by measure, you usually get a better buy in a supermarket when the goods are on sale. Ever since various municipalities instituted these recycling laws, the cost of these bags have skyrocketed. I just have to find a site that offers a good price with a reasonable shipping charge.
I've learned my lesson as far as buying b&m goes. More often than not, I'll walk into a store and they'll either not have the product, or a very limited variety to choose from. With the price of gas being so high, it's just a waste of money and time - if one can find the right web vendor.
Sort of off topic but I saw An Inconvient Truth last night and now believe we are all doomed within 10 years. Very, very sad situation.
I used to have an electric mulching mower that did the same thing. But I didn't like having to mow with a 100 foot electrical cord hanging around my neck. Now I use a little reel mower that just cuts the grass and doesn't do anything to the leaves. I put the leaves in either clear or orange bags and the city picks them up for composting.
We have a blue box system here. All paper, cardboard and paperback books go in one box, unsorted, and plastic and cans in the other. They are picked up on alternate weeks. So I don't have to do any sorting at all.
For people in apartments or outside the city various areas of the city have collection points with huge containers for paper and cans etc.
Just out of curiosity .. are the plastic bags a code requirement, or just the city's admin saying so? Seems rather dumb, and wasteful. Can't put newspaper in a bin and place it at the curb? Our city has small bins for single-family homes, and large roll-out containers for multi. Scoop and dump. City provides containers, included in mo. fee.
Maybe I am missing something, but it seems to me you are making way too big a project out of this than necessary. Just call your local sanitation department and ask if you don't see the info on their web site. Problem solved.
We have a new neighbor as of about two years ago. Since the idea of filling the landfill with leaves and clippings is fairly new around here the locals usually either hit the leaves with a mulching lawn mower or put them in a mulch pile to use in the garden. One is an avid gardener and even offers to collect leaves to put in their mulch pile. I noticed the new neighbors put out a bigger pile of bags of leaves than you described to go to the landfill. Then they have mulch delivered for the garden. I mentioned that they were throwing away the same stuff they were buying and that there was an area in their yard used by the previous owner for mulching. I just got a dumb look.
Yep, I know. I get annoyed when my husband scolds me for just tossing things in the trash because I can't find the label/logo that states what kind of plastic/glass it is... and I'm just cynical enough to think that the trash company just throws it all away anyway. I hope they DON'T, of course.
Yep, thus the chipper-shredder. Unshredded leaves from even a 1/3 acre oak and hickory forest is QUITE a large volume. I just remembered my peeve with the clear bag requirement: we did find large paper bags in all the stores designed for leaves and yard waste. It made NO sense to me why they insisted on plastic and refused to pick up anything in the paper bags. Paper biodegrades just like the leaves do, so you just toss the whole thing into the compost heap. Apparently they preferred to pay the labor for cutting the plastic bags open, dumping the leaves onto the compost, and then moving the bags to the plastics recycling area. ... or maybe they just throw the whole thing in the landfill. /sarcasm They wouldn't do that, would they? /sarcasm-off
Oh, and have you tried putting sticks and branches from trimming bushes into a PLASTIC bag?
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