Today is trash day. That’s the day wherein we gather up all of our banana peels, used dental floss, socks with holes in them, and broken plant pots and put them on the curb for the nice garbage men1 to collect it. That’s the good part.
Today is also recycling day. That’s the day wherein we gather up all of our wine bottles, empty dental floss containers, and news-magazines-we-never-got-around-to-reading-but-now-we’ve-gotten-the-next-issue-so-why-keep-the-old-one-around-s and put them on the curb for the nice recycling men1 to collect. The intent is good here — the less plastic that makes its way into the Pacific Gyre, the better off our planet is.
The problem is that in Massachusetts we have a bottle deposit. When I buy a can of Coke or a bottle of Duvel, I pay an extra 5¢ to the state. Then, if I return the empty bottle, I get my 5¢ back. Sometimes I forget about a bottle and it goes into the normal recycling pile. No problem, I’m not worried about the occasional 5¢ and I’m happy for the state to keep it to work down its massive budget deficits.
Except the state doesn’t get it. Every trash day there are roving bands of people with shopping carts who go around and poke through the trash and recycling looking for stray soda and beer bottles. I don’t begrudge them poking through my detritus. I sure don’t want it any more. What I do hate is that they tear open bags of trash and leave them mixed in with the recycling. Now everything has to go into the garbage truck and there’s nothing left for the recycling people to pick up. All my effort of separating my garbage so the human race can live on Earth for an extra 0.0002 seconds is for naught.
All for 5¢.
[1] the three who do my street are all men. I’m sure this isn’t a global phenomenon.
