Lately a lot of people have been asking us how our pickup of the plastic bins works, so now we’ve decided to tell all of you.

Schedule

We don’t really have a permanent schedule for pickups, but we usually go during the week, after practice or lessons. We also usually go on the weekend, whenever we have time and are not busy. If we don’t have much time, we can go to only 1 or 2 of the 3 locations (Maine Park, Activity (Senior) Center, and Community Center). We try to estimate how long it would take by usual amount of plastic at that location, the Community Center, being the most.

Emptying the Bins

I go inside with a couple trash bags. If there is not that much plastic in the bins, Mom waits in the car while I stuff the small bags into our own garbage bags, and other big bags that I find in the bin. If there is a lot of plastic in the bins, I go back to the car and ask for Mom’s help, and more garbage bags. Then, we do the same as before, and put it in the bags.

Heading out

Next we lug all of the plastic outside, put it in the trunk, and backseat if we are having a great pickup round, and drive off. We usually go to the locations in the order of Maine Park, Community Center, and then Senior Center because of where the locations are.

The Weigh-In

To weigh the bags, we hook them by their handles on to a crane scale, (sounds a lot bigger than it is) a kind of scale that people use to weigh fish, or luggage. Then we put it down on a piece of paper, which later,

Mom adds to a spreadsheet.

Drop off

Last, after we have accumulated a lot of plastic, we drop off the bags. We always drop off the bags at the Jewel-Osco on Busse and Greenwood. We drop them off in the back, by the garage. The workers at Jewel are very nice and helpful.

That is it for how we pick up and drop off the many pounds of plastic you have donated. I hope that this has been helpful and interesting. Let’s keep the plastic coming!