One thing that I enjoyed about Bellevue was that they had this great recycling drop-off facility. So, in our little bitty apartment, I would collect our recycling, keep it sorted, and ever-so-frequently drive with my newborn down to the recycling facility. Whew! Lots of work, but I was excited to have the opportunity to recycle. The community where we lived prior to Nashville had no such recycling facility.
However, when getting settled at 330 Lynn Drive, I quickly noticed two trashcans behind our house, one brown and one green. After inquiring about these with our neighbor, I learned that the brown one was for trash, and the green one was for CURBSIDE RECYCLING. WOW! This was exciting news to me! I was amazed at how simple it was to recycle now. Just throw it in the green can, no sorting required, and they picked it up at the front of our house! So, I quickly bought 2 large garbage cans for our kitchen: black can--trash and gray can--recycling
After only a couple of months, we realized that we were recycling WAY more than we were throwing away. The recycling pick up comes once a month, and we quickly outgrew our 1 container from the city. We were excited to learn that you can request a SECOND recycling container FREE, so we did just that! Our second container arrived 3 days later, and we've been maxing out both of them for the past 4 1/2 years! Ironically, we have so little trash in the brown container that we could roll it around once a month (instead of weekly) and be okay! So, if you visit our house, THIS is why we have these 3 guys (instead of 2 like most households) around back.
We've never really considered ourselves "green" people, but when we saw the impact from recycling, we got adventurous! As things around the house needed updating or replacing, we tried to be more energy efficient if it was feasible. The boys' rooms needed new light fixtures, so we found some that were certified energy efficient. When the ol' shower head died, we opted for a Waterpik Low Flow Shower Head. I was skeptical of the 'low flow' before I used it, but I'm definitely SOLD on it now! It has great pressure, and it's saving us money at the same time!
Being intentional with our choices around the house has allowed us to keep our electric and water bills pretty consistent over the past 4 1/2 years despite the fact that we've grown from a family of 3 to 5 during that time! I was excited that our electric bill was only $92 this month...amidst the heat that descended on Nashville these last weeks of May and first weeks of June! You're going to LOVE living here!
