Friday, September 11, 2015

OMG! this stuff piles up so fast!



The recycling had mounted up in the kitchen again so I sorted it into all the different plastic bags and added it to the growing pile in the garage. I try and send it home with my daughter who lives in the city or take it there when I'm in town but still it accumulates. This little town recycles plastic bottles, aluminum cans, newspaper, and corrugated cardboard. The other plastics, metal, office paper, cardboard packaging, and glass are thrown out. Unless I bag them up and take them to my daughter's house in the city which does recycle those items. But that's not really fair to her since there are six people in her family and she also recycles and that's a lot of stuff to store til recycling day. Not to mention a lot of stuff to set out. But what else can I do? Since I sold the house in the city last year, I have no place else to take it. And I can't accept just throwing it all away, adding to the already bulging landfills and lost resources.

I don't care for our throw-away culture, the lack of respect it shows towards the planet that we, ironically, need for survival. I have been taking my own bags to the grocery store since sometime after plastic bags became ubiquitous, long before it was the thing, back when the checkers and baggers rolled their eyes at you for doing it. When the newspaper piled up I would take it to the local paper plant that bought paper and they would look at my little truckload and say, lady, that's not enough for us to buy, but they would take it. When a local grocery store chain had locations that would accept aluminum and glass, I would lug it all down there. Plastic bags went to whatever place would take them. I've even taken big bags of styrofoam peanuts back to any box stores that will take them. I was thrilled when the city finally started the curbside recycling program. More and more items were accepted and less and less went in the trash. With a compost pile, we generate about one large size grocery store plastic bag of trash a week with the occasional run to the transfer station for big heavy things. The rest, which is considerable considering the way this country loves to package things, is what can be recycled...if you have access to it.


I'm lucky, I guess, that this little town, whose city government and economic council seem to put roadblocks in front of anything new in a (hopefully doomed to failure) attempt to keep this town from being prosperous and growing, has any recycling at all. But I still don't want to throw all this stuff away.

Maybe I'll just start making midnight forays into the edges of the city on different recycling days and add a little into everyone's bins.




13 comments:

  1. We have a transfer station right down the street and I haul everything there. I have no idea what really does get recycled but I dutifully put everything in the proper place. Sometimes different containers overfill and the guy who works there says to just put everything in wherever it will fit because they have inmates who sort it all anyway.
    This depresses the shit out of me for many reasons.
    Still. Gotta do it.

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  2. Recycling is good.

    Can you incorporate any of this into art? Just a thought.

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  3. I seem to recall reading Houston had a throw-it-all-away-in-one-bin policy because they had some magical Willy Wonka separating facility?

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  4. The problem is that there is no market for certain recyclables so even if your transfer station took them all, they would just pile up. We used to get a credit for our recyclables. Now we more often than not have to pay a fee. I would fault industry for not using more recycled content except ultimately the blame falls to the consumers who won't buy the recycled products.

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  5. We recycle everything that we can, and we compost most of the rest. But I still feel like it is a drop of water into the ocean when I come back from the county landfill!

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  6. We're lucky because our recycling gets picked up every week - and we can put everything in one bin. I put anything REMOTELY recyclable in there. I'm pretending that they don't throw any of it away :)

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  7. When I lived in a very small town that had no residential recycling at all, I approached a few large stores until I found one that let me add my recycling to theirs. I got some strange looks, during the search... but it worked out in the end.

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  8. I recycle, but I could do more, especially with paper and cardboard.

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  9. They make edible wrappers, and edible vessels, may taste horrible , like edible panties...but at least it breaks down by gastric juices. Recycling is there just to make us feel better I think, it probably does all end up in the ocean or landfill. We could do better, shopping bulk items instead of packaged is a great start. Like the olden days!

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  10. When I was in AZ they bought it by the pound. It added up fast.

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  11. Mr. Recycle in our house is Ry. He patrols us all to make sure that we are putting ALL of our recylables in the right place. Then our recycle is picked up on the same day as the trash. The funny thing is that because I use tin cans and breakfast cereal weight cardboard in so many projects, Ry is like a shark and circles my stash. He keeps telling me that I should just "let it go Oma", because he knows there is always more to come. I love that someone at school planted that idea in his mind and he considers it his job.
    So we have the recycle police here at Casa de Cuckoo and he does a great job.

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  12. I am with you, Sister! Our recycle bin is filled to the brim every week. I take the stuff they won't take to the places that will take it. On behalf of Mother Earth, we thank you!

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I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.