Despite having passionate environmentalist ideals, it has only been recently that I have actually started to recycle on a regular basis. Looking back, it seems astonishing that I didn't start earlier. I think this is a common phenomenon for many of us.
Between composting in my backyard and recycling, I hardly ever throw out much trash, anymore. It is actually shocking when I see people throw out easily-recycled materials such as cardboard boxes or stacks of paper at work. That was me, not too long ago. Its the kind of thing that makes me cringe now. I would not be surprised if we don't have to separate out our trash at all, in the future. There may be ways to pick out recyclables out of all of our trash. I have no idea when or even if that will happen. Its a bit easier to mechanically sort through relatively clean recyclables of different material composition than sifting through piles of rotted and filthy garbage. Right now, we can easily do the work ourselves.
The real kicker is how easy it is to recycle. I just have two bins of trash in my kitchen--one for recyclables, another for other trash. You don't have to separate your trash any further. A decade ago, recyclers were asked to separate metals from cardboard and to further sub-divide plastics based on the number of the plastic (the number that is inside the triangle). Even as recently as a few months ago, Columbus, OH, was only accepting plastics #1 & 2 in their public recycling bins. Now, they accept all plastics.
All I do is rinse out plastic bottles, cans or whatever and throw them into the bin. When its full, I haul it to one of the hundreds of neighborhood drop-off locations, dump it in and go. Most of them are at schools, fire houses and other public, easily identifiable locations. That's it. You do need to find out what your city or town offers.
I can't believe I didn't recycle before. I think I never knew how to do it--do I sign up for curbside recycling, do I separate trash a multitude of different ways, etc? It was just laziness.
Between composting in my backyard and recycling, I hardly ever throw out much trash, anymore. It is actually shocking when I see people throw out easily-recycled materials such as cardboard boxes or stacks of paper at work. That was me, not too long ago. Its the kind of thing that makes me cringe now. I would not be surprised if we don't have to separate out our trash at all, in the future. There may be ways to pick out recyclables out of all of our trash. I have no idea when or even if that will happen. Its a bit easier to mechanically sort through relatively clean recyclables of different material composition than sifting through piles of rotted and filthy garbage. Right now, we can easily do the work ourselves.
It just didn't involve a radical change in my lifestyle at all. I now have one very small additional errand that I run, and I have to be aware of what I'm throwing out and where. However, there is virtually nothing to it.
My environmental health professor thought household-level recycling didn't make an appreciable difference other than to make the recyclers feel good about themselves. He thought a lot of things.
ReplyDeleteIn Washington State it is illegal not to recycle. You can actually get a fine if a law enforcement officer catches you throwing your pizza box in the wrong bin, so they make it SUPER easy to recycle.
I have a deep passion for recycling. I am very proud that while others are taking out two bins of trash, I am taking one that is half full. Amazing the difference really when you add up all the houses on the street and all that is added to the landfill just from our street.
ReplyDeleteFunny thing happened at the nearest recycle bin to the house the other day- at the local school, a woman in a car, saw me dumping my recycleables and was outraged honking profusely, saying, "You can't dump your garbage here!!!!!!" I explained what was going on and she realized that I was doing a good thing and apologized many times. It was good to see a parent fighting for the school even if she was not in the know.
I then told her that many of the things in her car were recycleable. I think I went a bit too far.