My daughter and I pulled up to the stop sign in our little country town. In front of our very eyes, a man (I can no longer call him a gentleman), pulled a yard sale sign out of his yard, crossed the street in front of our car where we waited, and threw this sign into the ditch.Yes, just threw this large sign into the shrubbery.

My jaw dropped. My daughter gasped and I said, “Did he really just do that? Please tell me he did NOT just do that.”

“He did, mom. He really did.”

Tempted to roll my window down and give him a piece of my mind, I knew it was past my turn to head through the intersection. All the way home, I couldn’t shake my shock. Even my ten year old daughter couldn’t stop talking about the man who would just purposely and deliberately litter like that.

How much effort does it take to just throw the sign away? I mean, are we that lazy?

As parents, we constantly hear the encouragement to teach our kids to care for God’s earth. I get so frustrated when our kids get lazy and throw garbage on the ground. When they do that, they know troubles coming their way. They have to pick up what they threw, find the trash can and then pick up any surrounding, yes, nasty items that might be next to it just to build a little character.

Just last week, my husband’s office gathered for a service day of picking up litter on the highway. He couldn’t believe how much gathered. Are people just rolling down the window and throwing trash out? ‘

Ugh!! We need to raise a generation that cares!

Re-purpose, re-use, and recycle are popular trends these days. My daughter loves to re-purpose cardboard boxes and old bottles. If  you follow me on instagram (jenschmidt_beautyandbedlam), you know I love spray painting them, but one area of recycling that’s getting neglected is in the bathroom.

In fact,  according to a recent U.S. survey, 7 out of 10 Americans say they consistently recycle. However, only 1 in 5 Americans consistently recycle in the bathroom 22% of the people surveyed, the idea of recycling bathroom products never even occurred to them.

Honestly, I am embarrassed to admit it, but I am one of them. Guilty as charged.

With five children, all in sports, the amount of shower time we have is incredible, which means we go through a ton of shampoo and body wash bottles with multiple showers a day –  all of which can be used to make other products and materials.

I’m out of town and asked my son to snap a quick picture of the plastic bottles we have in our bathroom. HELP!! That is embarrassing, but our reality. Different children, different preferences, different fragrances, you get the picture.

Each year, Americans throw away enough 15-oz. shampoo bottles to fill 1,164 football fields—that’s more than 18,000 tons of plastic ending up in landfills.

I love supporting brands that desire to help others and Johnson & Johnson Family of Consumer Companies just launched a new campaign, CARE TO RECYCLE™, which creates awareness about the importance of bathroom recycling and desires to change behavior by providing helpful resources to consumers.

I highly recommend gathering your kids and popping over to the CARE TO RECYCLE™ page where they have a beautiful (and short) video which will inspire your kids to take the next step in recycling. They won’t be bored. It’s a great video.

Once you watch it, have them take a look around your bathroom and identify things that can be recycled. You will be amazed at everything you can gather for your bin.

In the world of plastics, there are shampoo, conditioner, body wash, lotion, baby powder, and face cleaner bottles, just for starters.

Not to mention the paper and card board item. We use a ton of toilet paper rolls and card board boxes.

There’s too much litter and waste going on in all our communities and each small step we take towards educating our children on the simple choices they can make to improve our environment equals large benefits.

Have you ever done a trash pick up day or how about recycling in the bathroom?

I’d love to hear what your family does.

*This post brought to you by Johnson & Johnson via Mom Trends. All opinions about picking up trash and recycling, completely mine. 🙂