Wait! Don't throw that glass bottle away...

Well, unfortunately, I am going to have to throw away that glass bottle for now, simply because recycling up here has become the most complicated thing i have ever seen, read about and heard of.

I think one of the strangest thing that has happened since I have been up here has been the fact that I cannot just throw everything into a bin, and at the end of the week, throw everything from that bin into the recycling dumpster outside my apartment.

I can't just mindlessly recycle anymore.

I'm pretty sure that I've now learned so much more about recycling since the program has changed about a month ago now.

I now have to separate out a lot of stuff and have about six different bins I put stuff in. And I often feel like I am singing the one word that comes up the most in Meghan Trainor's song, "No" whenever people ask me what is recyclable in Campbell County.

Here's the list of stuff I can recycle in Campbell County, Wyoming:

-No.1 Pete plastics: water, soda and energy drink bottles

-No.2 plastics: HDPE natural — milk and water jugs and colored plastics —detergent, shampoo, lotion bottles

Aluminum: soda and beer cans

Tin cans: soup, vegetable and tuna cans

Cardboard: corrugated and paste board

Mixed Paper: phone books, catalogs, junk mail, envelopes, magazines

Newspaper

Office and copy paper

*Do note that we have to divide all these out, so I pretty much have a different bin for each of these. That way, I can just take all the bins up to our recycling center and I don't have to do the dividing up there.

Curbside pickup has become a thing of the past for Campbell County. All of those who wish to recycle have to take their separated items for recycle to the old landfill, just under 10 miles from where I live.

We cannot recycle glass at all, and I'm fairly certain the term, "compost" isn't even a thing up here.

Also, as much as I grew tired of hearing "sustainability" in Fort Collins, I wish it was used a bit more up here. Fort Collins and CSU had made a pretty good dedication to trying to help out the environment , and being from the country, my family and I always seemed to have a thing for recycling, so I guess I just thought that's how it must be everywhere.

But that's not the case up here . Far from, in fact.

I've learned quite a bit about how much it actually costs a community to recycle, and this is where I feel I must congratulate Fort Collins, CSU and a lot of communities around Colorado, because it is quite the undertaking. Up here, they just have to be concerned about other things.

As my editor has taught me: "follow the money," because that's where the stories are.

And, yes. Even now on the recycling trail, there are so many stories to uncover. Campbell County residents who live far from town have stopped recycling altogether because it's not worth the drive to the landfill. Even though the actual "act" of recycling is free, the 80-mile round trip drive and cost in gas is a bit much for a lot of people, and that is understandable.

It's been an interesting journey up here so far, and I have learned quite a bit from this, even though it has turned into a time consuming thing that I'm just not used to.

But luckily, I'm actually in the same boat as everyone else on this one. The recycling program just changed in August, so we're all groaning and learning together.