Where I used to live, my nemesis was the recycling pick-up guy. There were many Fridays (garbage day) when I would put out bags and bags of paper, and he would pick and choose how many he wanted to cart away–in the process, leaving many behind. Eventually I called the trash removal company about this problem–and they removed this guy from my route. Now, I know that we probably recycle more than the average bear (or Behre), but that doesn’t mean that we should be penalized.

This is one of the reasons I’ve started trying to think outside of the recycling bin so that I’m not relying on my trash collection company only in taking away my recyclables. I realize that it’s more important to reduce my use and reliance on certain items–you know, the old reduce, reuse, recycle–but if you’ve got stuff you no longer need, it’s better to reuse or recycle it than to throw it away.

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far (some of which I’ve mentioned before):

* Taking boxes to the UPS Store. I just got finished writing a story for which I received a lot of product. And what did that product come in? Cardboard boxes. Since our trash company doesn’t recycle cardboard, I’m loading up my car today with all of the leftover cardboard boxes and taking them to the UPS Store. I realize that I will not receive a financial benefit in doing this–such as a discount on a future shipping service, though that would be awfully nice–but it will make me feel better to know that these cardboard boxes will be reused instead of relegated to a landfill.

* Bagging up paper to drop off at my daughter’s school. As I’ve blogged about before, my daughter’s school participates in the Abitibi Paper Retriever program. This encourages local residents to recycle their paper by bringing it to the Abitibi “dumpsters” on the school’s campus, and then the school earns money based on how much gets recycled each month. I’ll be loading up bags of used magazines, newspapers and office papers, along with shredded paper from the shredder, to drop off today.

* Bringing plastic bags back to the supermarket to be recycled. Not only can you place plastic grocery bags in the recycling bins you find outside of supermarkets but also dry cleaner bags and deflated plastic air pillows that are used in shipping.

* Donating magazines to doctors’ office. It didn’t dawn on me to take my already-read magazines to my chiropractor’s office until I realized that all he was planning to stock in the waiting room were car enthusiast magazines. So last week I slipped in a few back issues of Gourmet. This week, I’m probably going to drop off the House & Garden issues I know I’ll never get to (and with the magazine folding last week, there’s really no hurry).

I would love to hear other people’s ideas for how to think outside of the recycling bin.

A few years ago, we had as many phone lines in our home as we did people living here. There was our home number, my business line, a fax number, and a line dedicated to dial up.

When we got out of the dark ages and signed up for broadband cable, we were able to get rid of that dial-up phone line, bringing us down to three lines. Then when we moved earlier this year, we decided that, in this day-and-age of PDFs, we rarely needed to send or receive faxes, so we no longer needed the fax phone line.

Now we’re down to two phone lines, which I know Verizon knows because I’m billed for only two lines each month. Why is it, then, that this past Saturday, I arrived home from my daughter’s soccer game to find eight new phone books tossed on my driveway? We now had four full-sized white-and yellow-paged phone books, and four mini-me versions of the Yellow Pages.

What a waste of paper and resources it is for the phone company to be so careless with phone book delivery. Also, it feels so clueless that the phone company would be spending time and money on a physical phone book when it’s so easy to go online to Switchboard.com (full disclosure: I used to write a marketing newsletter for the company) or SuperPages.com.

I’ve got enough clutter issues in my house without figuring out what to do with eight new phone books, plus the three I have from before my move. So we’re putting some of the phone books in the recycling bin and tossing the others in the kindling pile. We burned one of the books last night in the fireplace, and it stayed aflame for a good hour or so.

One positive part about my multitude of phone books: I discovered that there’s an entire section of coupons to local businesses in the middle of the book–things like a chimney sweep, the local pizza parlor, Mr. Rooter, etc. There are also “fun”-related coupons to a music store, the local zoo and the minor league team nearby. So I’m tearing out those coupons, and then getting rid of these books, for which I really have no phone-related purpose.

It feels so horrible to be throwing stuff away, but like the gift you receive that you don’t like, can’t return, and have no use for, sometimes you’ve just got to toss it in the trash. That’s better than letting your guilt make you keep something you really don’t want or need.

Now I’ve got to figure out if there is some number I can call or website I can log onto at Verizon to opt out of physical phone books in the future.