We (actually I) do a lot of recycling as we do not have curbside pickup. So I individually segregate glass, steel, aluminum, paper and cardboard in distinct bins.
We have a county wide recycling center and I load up the truck once a month and bring it all in.
One day, a painter was throwing away those 5 gallon large paint pails at the recycle center. I took five home, (recycled the recycle) washed them out and use them to separate different colors of glass as we have separate bins for brown, green, clear and blue glass.
Paper (mostly newspaper) goes in empty 50 lb feed bags (we live on a livestock farm) and I use several large plastic (50 gal?) tubs with lids for aluminum (mostly beer cans). If you don't cover, the smell attracts yellow jackets
!
Then another 50 gallon plastic tub (with cover) for steel cans and such (same issue with bees).
Cardboard is a pain, but we don't have a lot of it.
Living on a farm, we have a huge compost pile and we put in household kitchen waste, but absolutely nothing that will attrack skunks, racoons, 'possoms. This means no bones, fat, etc. That goes in the garbage and it goes to a curbside large recepticle for weekly pickup.
An observation. My wife and I have recycled all our adult lives. We find it very curious that our younger kids do not do as we do. Maybe they will when they get a bit older. The oldest (age 30) does recycle.
Lastly, it is GREAT
to throw the glass bottles into the steel recycle hopper. The smashing noise is just a great release. One day I let some young kids (7-9) do it for me and they enjoyed it more than I did! Their parents said I turned them into recyclers (or hellions at home).
Great topic.
Steve