Long ago, I used to recycle. Then the government made it mandatory. At that point, municipalities wouldn't let non-residents drop off at their recycling centers anymore. Our local government didn't provide pick-up for recycling, and the drop-off place was open 2 hours a month when they could get somebody there to man the place ... which wasn't consistent at all. So I pretty much gave up on recycling.
Besides, we don't make much garbage anyway. I don't buy cookies or pies in those plastic containers; I bake. I don't buy fast food to have cups that go in the garbage. I don't have those styrofoam trays that meat comes in; it comes wrapped in butcher paper instead. I like to compost during the non-winter months. We buy little "stuff" so there's not oodles of packaging that then fills up our garbage can.
So now we live in a subdivision where there's weekly trash pick-up (as opposed to monthly which we had in the previous house). And they have those little blue recycling crates, and we're supposed to separate the trash. Today's dinner was cowboy soup. This is one of my favorite insta-foods, but it comes in tin cans: 10 of them for the double-recipe I usually make. And I'm thinking, "Hey, that's a LOT of can-ends to cut off!" It's not just the 10 to open the cans, but 20 to cut out the ends so that the cans can be properly flattened as per the govt's instructions on How To Recycle. And I have a manual can-opener. I suppose I could buy an electric can opener to make it easier to comply with the recycling instructions. But would THAT make sense? Using electricity so that we can recycle and save energy???
And then, after cutting off all those blasted tin-can ends, I had to wash them. Again, where's the sense in this??? I waste water to wash a can, all for the sake of putting it in the garbage. Those tin cans rust and decompose pretty quickly anyway. I'm probably using more energy to recycle the can my kidney beans came in than the [ta da!] recycling conserves.
Green people need to learn to look at the big picture.
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This are heretical writings. Be careful the green police don't get you!
ReplyDeleteWe're supposed to flatten cans and wash out containers also. I don't I may swish a can out in the dish water before it gets emptied out of the sink, but that's it. I never rinse out milk containers. I don't carefully put the newspapers in a brown paper bag. Our recycle trucks pick them up every week and I have never had anything not taken.
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