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Can you recycle a female urinal?

I didn’t know there was such a thing until last week, but this week I can answer, ”Yes indeedy! You surely can!”

A day in the life of a Betty is plagued by such questions. When we do home clear-outs, our mission is to funnel everything in the house to the best place possible. We sell what we can, donate what we can’t sell, recycle what we can’t donate and finally…. throw away what we can’t recycle.

But you’d be amazed at what you CAN recycle.

In a previous blog , I listed where to recycle old fur coats and stoles, human wigs, worn out towels and other things you would think would have to be trashed.

In another blog, I explored the heavenly state of zero waste.

Here are a couple of other great sites: Check out this one on zero waste. Check out another one on zero waste.

There’s a helpful website which has a widget at the top where you can type in your ZIP code and what you want to recycle, and they will display places near you that recycle the given item.

Over the nine years The Betty Brigade has been in business, we’ve come across some pretty strange items, many of which have found homes outside the landfill.

To add a little fun to our days, we create competitions among our ranks. Currently we’re doing a Bingo game. The chart has random items one might come across in a home clear-out or organizing job.
Some of the items on the current scavenger hunt are:
• human prosthetic
• dead rodent
• flat rodent
• creepy toy
• porn
• old technology — 1990 or earlier

So far I have found four of the above items… And there are strict rules, too. For example, even though a flat rodent is probably also a dead rodent, it can be counted as either dead or flat — not both. You can also finesse the game. A greeting card with Mickey Mouse on it, for example, could count as a flat rodent.

See how much fun we Betties have? I’m one Hustler magazine away from Betty Bingo! Aside from the glory and accolades that accompany that feat, comes a $50 gift card!

But getting back to the theme here…

You can recycle your old running shoes — even if they’ve been run into the ground. Click here.

My most recent eye opener: There’s a place that recycles sex toys. No, I’m not kidding. Click here. Their motto? "Love yourself, love the planet."

So if your… um, well... if it breaks, just drop it off at a collection center. And if you forget to remove the batteries, no big deal — they recycle those, too!

You have to go to this site, just to see their recycling symbol.

And just so you can’t say I didn’t give you any info you could really use, here is the Waste Knot guide from Washtenaw County.

Judy DiForte is a professional organizer for the Betty Brigade, an Ann Arbor-based concierge company specializing in move coordination, organizing and event planning. Email her at Judy@BettyBrigade.com, or leave a comment here.