I have two young, very imaginative boys so one method of recycling in my home is giving them stuff to "create" with.  Creamer bottles, milk cartons, oatmeal containers, they all can become very cool space ships!  They use things in ways no adult would ever imagine.  It is fascinating to watch and great exercise for their brains.

We have a great recycling store in Ann Arbor called the Scrapbox.  People and businesses can donate materials and then you can come in, purchase a paper bag and fill it with treasures for only $2.  The last $2 I spent there provided my sons with months worth of creating.  There are factory reject parts, parachute scraps, scraps from paper, plastic and foam products.  All sorts of goodies that send the imagination soaring.  Luckily our elementary school has been taking advantage of this wonderful resource.

We also have curbside recycling.  I do as much of this as possible but get discouraged sometimes because I have caught the garbage guys just dumping the recyclables into the compactor rather than leaving it for the recycling truck.  I keep trying though and have made a couple of calls to the waste management center.

I recall my most discouraging experience with recycling.  I was in high school and our french club was trying to raise money for a trip to Quebec.  Our teacher was an extreme tree hugger (I don't mean anything negative by that.  She was a very wonderful person) who lived in a barn and ate only vegan food unless it was brownies   Well, she had the admirable idea to collect newspaper to take to the recycling center.  Unfortunately she didn't do her homework on how much we would get paid and it turned out that 4 van loads (which was equivalent to an entire weekend of driving all over northern MI) only got us about $10.  We spent way more than that on gas alone!

I don't composte though which is something we did growing up.  But I grew up in farm country and now live in suburbia.  I think farmers are probably the experts on recycling.  Farmers and people who lived during the depression.  My grandma reuses and saves everything.  She even washes and reuses sandwich bags!  She has a lot of time on her hands though

It is hard to believe what a disposable society we have now.  There is disposable everything now.  I even heard they came up with a disposable cell phone!