What About Tomorrow?
Posted by Zoe's Dad at Tuesday, May 13, 2008 8:40 AM and is filed under Recycling,sloth,Trash,do the right thing 
My son, God bless him, has decided that our archaic and wasteful ways must come to an end. He feels we have not been good stewards of our resources and has instituted some changes.
Him: Dad, why don't we recycle?
Is there ever an acceptable answer for not doing something that will benefit our household, our community or the environment? Really? Is because I'm a lazy slob going to cut the mustard here? What about because our little village does not have a recycling program and we have to haul our recyclables 10 miles to the nearest drop off facility? No, I'm pretty much stuck.
Me: You're absolutely right, Buddy. We should recycle.
That's all he needed to hear. The very next time we took a trip to Lowe's he was all over the task of selecting bins to start our recycling campaign. We chose three basic plastic storage containers and he wasted no time labeling them. Paper, Cans and Plastik. It was official then. We now recycle and he is the recycling sheriff.
His job is to police our family's trash habits and see to it that the proper bins are used for our recycling. My job is once the bins are full to haul the recyclables the 10 miles to the drop off facility.
One of us has not been doing their job.
Today is our regular trash day. Would it be so wrong to leave it all at the corner and start over tomorrow?
Him: Dad, why don't we recycle?
Is there ever an acceptable answer for not doing something that will benefit our household, our community or the environment? Really? Is because I'm a lazy slob going to cut the mustard here? What about because our little village does not have a recycling program and we have to haul our recyclables 10 miles to the nearest drop off facility? No, I'm pretty much stuck.
Me: You're absolutely right, Buddy. We should recycle.
That's all he needed to hear. The very next time we took a trip to Lowe's he was all over the task of selecting bins to start our recycling campaign. We chose three basic plastic storage containers and he wasted no time labeling them. Paper, Cans and Plastik. It was official then. We now recycle and he is the recycling sheriff.
His job is to police our family's trash habits and see to it that the proper bins are used for our recycling. My job is once the bins are full to haul the recyclables the 10 miles to the drop off facility.One of us has not been doing their job.
Today is our regular trash day. Would it be so wrong to leave it all at the corner and start over tomorrow?
Brilliant, a sure sign that he's executive material.
He's an 'ideas' man.
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I think he gets it from his mom. Every time they have a great idea---I've got more work to do!
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10 miles to recycle? Are you causing more polution to do this? Does the good really outweigh the bad? Perhaps these trips SHOULD be saved up and ONLY made when you're already heading that way. I see it like the Ethenol for cars. Sure, we use less gas, but the environment gets the short end of the stick because we have to cut down way more trees for planting fields of corn, and the energy savings from the Ethenol doens't even come close to what we've lost from the forests.... Just an example.
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You may have an excellent point there. It would certainly be different if our little village had a recycling program or even a drop off facility. My other question was how much am I really helping what with all of the extra water I'm using rinsing out the glass and plastic.
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How was your trip to see your mom? How did you find her? Did you hear her laugh? Alzheimers stole my mother from me so many many years ago that when she passed away three years ago, it was almost a relief. Almost. I still miss her. I missed "her" for many years. My children got cheated out of a grandma, my dad out of a wife, my siblings and I out of our mom. I feel for you. Totally and completely. Your post touched my heart - because I so closely identify with it, and with the feelings you have right now. I've just been thinking about you, and her, since you posted and wondered how it went, and how she is, and how you are?
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Thank you so much for asking. It was definitely a difficult trip to make but worth the effort as I did in fact get to hear her laugh.
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Aw, his heart's in the right place... maybe you can do something else instead of recycling... composting perhaps? You can still collect garbage, but you can recycle it yourself and not have to drive! Do you have a mall or some other business that takes recycling? Other things you can have him concentrate his good intentions on: CFL bulbs, in charge of the cloth bags when you shop, being aware of low-packaged groceries...
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Composting is definitely on the horizon. We've got most of the bulbs replaced--it's an ongoing cycle and I can see that cloth bags may be a part of our future as well. Baby steps...
He's dreaming of bigger things though. Like a garden and a cow!
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I'm right there with you. Our old neighborhood had curbside recycling and I got quite spoiled. I'm really not into doing the work now, but I'm going to have to buck up, I think I have a future tree hugger in my crew. Just wish she could drive
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It's funny. When we lived in the city and had the service we didn't use it. Now we're in the country, don't have the service and are recycling.
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I think every community/county should make it mandatory to recycle, and they need to make it easy for people to do it. Single stream recycling is the best and easiest, but it takes some political will to do it. I think most people want to do what's right, but when we were in the same boat as you and had to take our recycling miles away to drop off, we never did it. When the county/city made it possible for us to do it at our home, then we converted almost immediately.
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I actually sent a fairly terse letter to the director of our county recycling program. Their website has all of this information on recycling and please do it yada, yada, yada. Not once do they mention where to bring your recyclables. It kind of made me mad. We actually have to bring our stuf into the next county to drop it off. (It's not so bad, we live less than a mile from the county line but still!)
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You should suggest to him that you take it to the people and get your little village to create a recycling program. That would make him feel awesome and help the environment.
Or you could just throw it all in a dumpster behind McDonald's.
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I suppose it would be kind of fun to have him make a spiel at the village meeting. He can be persuasive.
Besides, we don't have a McDonald's.
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Oh man, it's too bad you can't get curbside recycling. We have it and it's so handy. But why not enlist him to help you take it in too? He's a go getter so why not use this to your advantage.
But you should recycle!
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Oh, he helped. We made our first big run today. In the rain. It sucked. But I suppose way deep down I felt just a tiny bit good.
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Oh man! Curb side recycling! I haven't had that luxury since I lived in Eugene, Oregon eight years ago. We have to haul it 12 miles to deposit it. I never make a special trip for it, I just throw some of it in the family mobile each time we are headed that way already and make a quick stop to dump. We've been pretty diligent for the past 12 years. I think it cuts our dumpster trash in half.
Composting is next on my list of things to learn how to do. Can't be that hard. We throw way too much organic stuff away. There's no excuse, especially now that we live on an acreage and are growing our own food.
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I did notice a drop in the regular trash after just two weeks. That was kind of cool. I think my garbage man hates me though because I have such huge piles week after week. It'll be a long while before those fences are mended.
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