Recycling

I have abhorrence for recycling. I’m talking about the actual act of sorting garbage, collecting cans, paper and glass and then carrying the plastic box to the curb.

My garbage gets treated better and it treats me better. My garbage can has a nice tight fitting lid and the can has wheels with a nice handle so I can roll the garbage as far as I want to.

My recycle bin contains garbage that has been deemed to live again but it does not have a top, no handle, no wheels, and little holes on the bottom where garbage juice can leak on me. Instead of moving my special garbage with one hand like my real garbage I must cradle my bin in both arms and bear the entire weight of this juice dripping beast.

I hate garbage juice.

Back in the dark ages we had a different system that involved everyone. Most everything came in glass bottles like Coke and milk. When we were finished the bottle would be washed and used again and again.

The Milkman would pick up the bottles and leave you new bottles full of milk. No plastic jugs to recycle into carpets and door mats.

Coke and other soft drink bottles would be taken back to the store and you would get more bottles full of Pepsi or Coke. No more aluminum cans or plastic bottles.

Beer cans were made of steel. Steel could have been recycled but nature did something better. It rusted the damn cans away to nothing in no time at all.

It all made better sense to reuse things until they broke.

9 comments:

Rock Chef said...

Don't forget that you used to get money back when you returned glass bottles to the shop! That was a real bonus for kids, especially you found some that someone else couldn't be bothered to return!

Ken said...

I used to have all the same misery with the recycle bin [we don't have to here] that you have, until I started supporting noise pollution. I drilled holes near the handles [even if they changed bins] and had a long piece of metal with a hook on the end. I'd drag that sucker down the driveway waking half the neigbors up, but I never got garbage juice on me again!

Reggie Hunnicutt said...

Chef...we would get 2 pennies per bottle, then it went to 3, and finally 5 cents before this all stopped.

I used to collect bottles as a kid for money.

Good idea Micky...my drive way is long and it would get every dog in the county barking.

Rock Chef said...

While you are into a bit of construction, maybe you could attach a couple of wheels to the sucker too!

Jay said...

We don't do recycling here in Redneckville. That's for those tree-hugging, terrorist-supporting commie environmentalist pansies. Or something like that.

mr zig said...

i like the colour of the recycling boxes here, but I hate lugging them to the street - but I do love the black hefty bag toss from the garage to the street - but sorting recycling sucks

David said...

We're talking beyond recycling - better than recycling. Save money and the Earth and be clean at the same time...yes! Get serious and add Bathroom Bidet Sprayers to all your bathrooms. Available at www.bathroomsprayers.com with these you won't even need toilet paper any more, just a towel to dry off! It's cheap and can be installed without a plumber; and runs off the same water line to your toilet. You'll probably pay for it in a few months of toilet paper savings. And after using one of these you won't know how you lasted all those years with wadded up handfuls of toilet paper. Now we're talking green and helping the environment without any pain.

Reggie Hunnicutt said...

Ice cold well water sprayed on my butt would be quite the eye opener.

Anonymous said...

My wife teaches Kinder with a unit on recycling. A few years ago she felt like she was a hypocrite for not recycling. So we got an extra bin. Best move we've made in a while. Super easy. Our trash bags have been cut in half. Doesn't cost me anything to put stuff in the bin and someone carries it off. My 5 year old has even gotten into it.