Things We Should All Do to Recycle More

.

Oh man; since I've started taking my garbage / trash out to the "transfer station" myself, I have been more forcibly confronted with amount of trash I personally generate, to fill this little state with refuse.  In a world where we work so hard at absolutely refusing to allow things to make us feel bad, no matter how dastardly we have been, and how deservedly the bad-feeling-ation has fallen upon us, we must stop doing that, and allow the bad feelings to wash over us.  If we generate tons of garbage, we deserve to feel like garbage!

But seriously, I bet if we look at the statistics (which are no doubt very carefully hidden), we will find that, per person, this nation has generated more garbage in this decade than ever before.  Never, in the words of Winston J. Churchill, has so much garbage been generated so fast by so few.

1.  I must find a way of encouraging the school at which I work to recycle magazines.  They claim that they recycle magazines, but the probably just toss the magazine recycling bins in the regular trash.  Such are the evil ways of schools.  Never before in history have schools been more cavalier about waste recycling.

2.  I must find a way of encouraging the S.A.W.I.W to recycle batteries and fluorescent tubes and those little spiral tubes.  This stuff contains Mercury, and yes, we won't have to eat the Mercury, but along the road, our descendants will.  And they will be as mad as hatters.  Oh god, we are really scum.  Well, now that that's settled, it is cheering to note that chain stores such as Best Buy and Staples will accept such things as used Alkaline Batteries and sometimes printer cartridges at their locations.  Just a few minutes ago I learned that Radio Shack does, too.  And Verizon, for instance, sometimes accepts used cell phones, which they recondition and give to various charitable organizations for the use of women who live in abusive situations, for instance.  (Many cell phone companies will continue to support the 911 feature in cell phones whose service period has expired; this feature, I believe, is mandated by the government.)

3.  We must find a way of encouraging our localities to recycle plastics other than just type 1, 2 or 3.  [If you don't know what I'm talking about, ask your Fifth Grader.  They learn all about this stuff in school.  (Even though the schools themselves don't really recycle as much as they claim to be, they sure as hell teach the kids how to recycle...)  Look at the bottom of a bottle of milk or dishwashing detergent; you see a symbol such as shown here, with the recycling logo, and a number in the center.

(You can learn about what these acronyms stand for at The Daily Green, an organization that publishes recycing-related information about plastics.)  Presently, as the article at The Daily Green makes clear, most communities only accept types 1 and 2 above, for free curbside recycling (PETE and HDPE, both variants on PolyEthylene, aka polythene).  The decision as to which types to recycle seems to be based on how easily and profitably a plastic type can be recycled, rather than how toxic it will be if put in the landfill (or burnt, in communities that allow that).

4.  Last, but certainly not least, we have to find a way of reducing junk mail, or at least making the companies that generate the stuff feel it in their checkbooks.