A city of Lawrence trash truck unloads a full 21,000-pound cargo of household refuse at the Lawrence sanitary landfill.

We are wasteful. Just ask the folks who collect trash every day. They see it all.

“You couldn’t even imagine,” said Tommy Taylor, who has worked for the city of Lawrence’s Solid Waste Division for eight years.

It’s not just cardboard, aluminum cans and newspapers. They see clothes with the price tags still on them, fixable appliances and even money.

“We found a big pickle jar — like a gallon pickle jar — full of nothing but quarters at the bottom of a Dumpster,” Taylor said.

During this time of year — moving time — the trash truck loaders will see lots of reusable items such as clothes and furniture and recyclable items such as cardboard and plastic.

“We see lots and lots of plastic bottles,” Taylor said.

Several Lawrence environmentalists said plastic water bottles are the perfect example of how wasteful society has become.

Kathy Richardson, operations supervisor for Lawrence’s Waste Reduction and Recycling Division, offered this food for thought: Instead of buying a 24-pack of water bottles, why not buy one reusable bottle and fill it with tap water?

“In the end, it’s not only generating all of those plastic bottles, but it’s also saving you money,” she said.

Another example is using reusable bags instead of the store’s plastic ones. Lisa Foster, founder of California-based 1Bag at a Time, said one reusable bag replaces about 1,000 plastic ones and saves the government about $170 in costs.

Developing habits

Craig Pruett, field supervisor of the city’s Solid Waste Division, said there’s no denying that people are “pretty wasteful” as he watched three employees fill a city truck, which holds about 10 tons of trash. It is one of 18 trucks that are filled between one and three times on a trash collection day. These trucks deliver about 230 tons of material to Hamm Sanitary Landfill on an average trash day.

Last year, the city dumped 71,572 tons of material into the 570-acre landfill just five miles north of town. The landfill is expected to last 80 years.

“It’s all about a person’s mindset,” Pruett said.

One person’s trash might be another’s treasure. Some people spend time, energy and money to recycle, while others simply toss it in the Dumpster.

Count Lawrence resident Ellen Rife among those who recycle. Rife and her husband spend $16 a month for curbside recycling. She said they recycle materials such as glass, plastics, aluminum cans, chipboard, newspapers, magazines and catalogues.

Rife, who was holding her 1-year-old daughter, Rosalind, said curbside recycling is easy, affordable and makes sense.

“I am not putting all of that in the landfill. We try to be as green as we can afford and as we can be,” she said. “It seems like a good use of our money and our time.”

Then she looked at her daughter, got a little teary-eyed and added, “I would like her to grow up in the best world that she can.”

In 2007, the latest data available, 30,314 tons of materials were recycled through city and private sector efforts, representing a 35 percent recycling rate. These recycling efforts saved the city $580,500 in landfill costs. Revenue from the sale of recycled materials through the city was $228,000.

Services available

Chris Scafe owns Sunflower Curbside Recycling, one of the five curbside recycling businesses in Lawrence. Scafe said he has about 495 customers and collects about one ton of materials per day. He takes it to 12th and Haskell Recycle Center Inc., one of three recycling centers in Lawrence.

Scafe started his curbside recycling company in 2003 in a Buick Park Avenue. He bought a van because business grew and last July went even bigger, buying a white truck, similar to a medium-sized moving truck.

Most of his business is conducted online — reducing paper waste. His customers just put their recyclable items on the curbside by 8 a.m. on a certain weekday and he comes by and picks it up. It works like the city’s trash collection.

“It’s just habit,” Scafe said.

Rife said her household has one big bin that they put stuff in and then on Wednesday morning, they sort it and put it on the curbside. For others, it’s easier to get several containers and keep it sorted.

Richardson, of the city’s recycling division, said if residents don’t want to pay for curbside recycling, they can take it to the recycling drop-off bins or centers themselves.

“It’s really up to everyone,” she said.

The city’s main goal is to inform people about the many resources available. Those are available online at lawrenceks.org/wrr.

For example, there are five places to donate clothes instead of throwing them in the trash. There also are at least four stores that buy and sell used clothing.

“It’s about trying to connect people to giving all of those items that are now in their hands — to give them for reuse, to give them another life,” Richardson said.