Recently we set up a TerraCycle collection program for my son's school. We collect certain items and for each item TerraCycle donates 2 cents to the school. Its a little money and great big feeling of happiness that our world is going to be a cleaner place.
What this article is about, is recycling containers, not so much recycling. I was browsing around online to see what sort of recycling receptacle were available. All of the ones that looked suitable for outdoor use at the school ran between $375 and $1000. . . I was shocked! Who wants to spend a $1000 on glorified blue garbage can? You would have to collect 20,000 cans with a CRV of 5 cents to pay for the recycling can. Ugh! Not to mention, none were themselves made of recycled materials as far as I could ascertain. So it was off to my favorite place. Our local slavage yard, Building Resources.
I was really lucky! They had a stack of blue tomatoes sauce barrels. I found two, one slightly larger than the other so it would fit one over the top of the other. Here is how I turned them into a recycling container. You will need a sharpie, drill bits, reciprocating saw, rasp or file and about an hour. I took the smaller barrel that I wanted to be the bottom and drilled a hole just large enough for the blade of the saw above the "rib." Be careful when drilling in plastic. The drill bit grabs as it passes out the back side. I had this same experience when drilling holes in the rain barrels. 
Then with the barrel on its side I proceeded to cut my way around the barrel. I started off sitting on the barrel but about half way had to get off because the barrel was loosing stability as I cut the top off. I repeated the operation with the second barrel cutting just below the "rib" this time so that the "rib" was included at the edge of both parts I was using. I then confirmed that my larger barrel would fit over my smaller barrel. It fit perfectly! My plan had been to cut the "rib" off of the bottom barrel making the upper edge slightly smaller if it hadn’t fit. Since it fit, I then took a bastard file and smoothed out the cuts. 
I took a can of paint and used the sharpie to mark a circle on the upper/lid part. Again using the drill to make a pilot hole I then sawed around making a cut out on each side for people to drop things in. Last I took my largest d
rill bit and drilled a few holes in the bottom so it wouldn’t fill up with water. The finished container measured 38" tall, 23" in diameter and will hold 6.5 cubic feet.
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