Trash: Vince called me on his way to the grocery store to let me know he saw three of our neighbors cleaning up Justice Road leading to our neighborhood. That makes me so happy.

Vince and I cleaned up this stretch of road leading into our neighborhood at least twice a year for the past three years and were planning on doing it for the first time this year in a couple of weeks. We were always the only ones doing it, but people would slow down to thank us and sometimes take the bags of trash away for us.

We figured it was a matter of time before like-minded neighbors looking to make our neighborhood better would step up.

Recycling: Vince sent our first batch of recycling to Sam’s last week on his day off. Last year, we recycled over 285 pounds of material and reduced the numbers of trash bags we sent to Middle Point Landfill from about 120 to roughly 40 bags for the entire year. You can see photos of our recycling efforts on Flickr.

Here is the breakdown of our first batch for 2009:

• cardboard: 19.6 lbs
• paper: 16.8 lbs
• plastic: 9.8 lbs
• steel: 4.2 lbs
• aluminum: 2.8 lbs