Our trip to the Baylor Hudson Recycling Center
Fountain Hills is home of the world’s highest fountain, which is in the middle of a lake surrounded by a park. When my family lived there, the community would host events, fireworks on 4th of July, concerts, balloon races, art shows and 10k races. After these events, one thing you could count on was a ton of trash being left behind. My sister and I would collect cans and deposit bottles from the trash that blanketed the park. We would haul in $75-100 dollars in bottles and cans.
That’s serious cash when you’re a teenager.
Deposit bottles are long gone, and the field of recyclables has grown to include things like motor oil, computer monitors and batteries. Once we had started recycling in our apartment, I was surprised by some of the things that I learned. Tin cans are recyclable, I always just threw them away. I did not realize what an environmental hazard batteries are, containing several heavy metals that leak into the ground or wherever they land. I have seen a corrosive battery, the kind that looks like its got some weird white mold growing on it. 
I didn’t think of it as pollution. Just something that needed to be thrown away.
Our trip to the Baylor Hudson Recycling Center
On Saturday morning we went to the Baylor Hudson West Drop Off Site to recycle. It was quite the fascinating place, bundles of recycled material, a glass crusher and a commingling recycling bin. COMMINGLING!! How exciting is that! This means we don’t have to separate our recyclables! Which will really keep our balcony clean. It doesn’t get easier than that.
The only drawback of the site was it only accepts plastic #1 and plastic #2. If we want to recycle the rest of the plastics we have to drive them to another location. If you live in Phoenix, there are three drop off sites for recycling. I think we’re going to drop off our recyclables about twice a month. Check with Earth911.com for your nearest drop off site or if you live in a house, get a blue bin and find out when the city picks up recyclables.
Sheila Bocchine and Gary Millard are both Phoenix photographers.
As of June 17th 2011 we have upgraded our comment system to use Facebook comments.
The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.
jennyvi
posted on July 24th, 2007 at 10:30 am
I’m in the exact position as you are, it’s difficult to recycle when there aren’t too many places who have bins….. I will be taking after you soon.
cornea503
posted on April 29th, 2008 at 11:01 am
While recycling has always made sense to me. South Florida has a nice recycling program. Truck stops by your house to pick up newspaper, glass and the like. Now im in TN and no such thing. Gotta drive like 10+ miles. Not very convenient or efficient. Until there is a way for companies to turn a profit from it, it is going to be difficult for recycling centers to be convenient. Best way to recycle is to stop buying crap you don’t need…