drop in the bucket

i was thinking of how much i drive around town dropping off recycling, and it's kind of a lot! here is the list of things i collect for donations or recycling:

- plastic bags - grocery store, target
- aluminum cans, plastic / glass drink bottles - recycling center at supermarket (i get $ for this one tho)
- paper (including newspapers and all other kinds) - guy who picks it up once a week
- plastic or glass food containers - buddhist org in norwalk
- random plastic (generally from packaging) - godmother's house (their city has separate trash bins for plastic and other recyclables)
- batteries - la palma city hall
- e-waste - local e-waste recycling site
- packing material (peanuts, air packets) - old work (which does a lot of shipping)
- large cardboard - old work (people drive by and pick up cardboard)
- clothes hangers / large sponges - dragon boat equipment shed
- film canisters - costco
- cosmetics containers - origins counters / store
- toys - chinese school (they give out prizes to kids)
- shoes - souls4soles collection box at vans store
- glasses - lions club (current drive)
- hotel toiletries / other random travel sized toiletries - homeless shelter
- random non-perishable foods, plastic utensils - homeless shelter
- books / magazines / cds - la palma library
- clothes - my best friends and i are around the same size in clothing so we do swaps nearly every time we meet up
- random clothes and things - local drive-by pick-ups
- random beanies and gloves that i pick up on sale - random homeless people
- blankets - neighbor will be starting a drive soon
- prescription bottles - have started collecting, can't find who to donate to...
- my hair! - have donated to locks of love three times. :)

it's pretty crazy all the things you can recycle. but it's pretty damn annoying that not one place takes everything. like the recycling centers don't take paper, newspapers, milk jugs or like... glass soy sauce bottles, so i have to take them to the buddhist collection center (tho thank god i found them!). and i've started collecting my parents' empty prescription bottles but no one will take them! i'm actually pretty upset that kaiser permanente doesn't do anything about this... how many bottles do they fill a day? and how can they not have some sort of recycling / reusing program? a little more about this... so i went online to see where what i could do with the bottles and someone suggested calling local free clinics or veterinarian hospitals. i did that, and nope, none of the ones within a 15 mile radius of my house takes these things. gah!