Frustrated recycler seeking trashy solutions

(691 words)

I’m convinced the only way we’re going to solve our confounding plastic waste crisis is to make all the containers we use to transport some kind of food out of some other kind of food.

It’s why I always order soup in a bread bowl. You slurp the soup then you consume the bowl. Nothing is wasted. Nothing is thrown away. The only thing that could be better is if the server presented it on a pancake plate. It’s an environmentalist’ dream, I tell ya. 

A minimum-wage career dishwasher’s nightmare, yes, but an environmentalist’s dream. 

I’m imaging a world where soft drinks come in bottles made out of, say, bird seed. 

That way you could enjoy your soda and let it either drop to the ground or chuck it at the head of any nearby New England Patriots fan. Either way, birds will swoop in and devour the debris or an NFL referee will appear out of nowhere and flag you for mistreating Tom Brady.

Make the penalty flag out of Pringles!

I mention all this because I’ve about reached the breaking point with recycling. As has my Latrobe recycling center, China and, I guess, planet Earth.

My wife and I have been avid recyclers for 25 years. We were on the ground floor of the movement.

The problem with being on the ground floor of a movement like that is that eventually the ground floor becomes full of trash.

That’s about where we’re at now. China says it no longer has a market for trash, so eventually my community recycling facility said it can no longer accept ours. I began to sense we were nearing a breaking point when it dawned on me just how much time I was spending essentially recycling air.

This wasn’t good, old air mind you. It was the crappy stuff you and I breath.

I differentiate because I remember a story in the Weekly World News — vigilant tracker of Bat Boy! — that quoted reputable scientists from South Granada Community College in the Caribbean who said we could cleanse Earth’s air by popping the tires of old cars from the 1950s to liberate the good clean air from bygone days when all was more wholesome.

Mind you, this was the same scholarly tabloid that revealed all the ocean waters are composed entirely out of old dinosaur urine.

I digress.

But I’ve lately noticed how loading my vehicle up was like Santa loading up his sleigh only I had gifts like stuff nobody really wants. Not even China. I had maybe 4-pounds of actual recyclables in big leaf disposal bag as big as Santa’s sack. I’d pour the contents into the big blue steel container, an enormous unit that must weigh nearly 20 times its flimsy cargo.

I’m one of those guys who is hyper alert to any hint of managerial inefficiency — the sole, glaring blindspot being the way I’ve pursued my entire career. 

First, every home recycler should have a spiffy kitchen trash compactor that could reduce a week’s worth of recyclables into the size of my old Speed Racer lunch box. 

Then you take your little square to the recycling center where they weigh it, you pay a small fee and they in return give you the key element to ensure the program’s success. 

They give you a great, big balloon. 

Tie it to you trash and … release! Trash disposal will never appear so scenic.

The balloons will need to go high enough that if they collide with our orbital space trash or some luckless bastards on the International Space Station the whole mess will burn up on re-entry, providing a cool light show for us gravity-bound Earthlings. 

That’ll tide us over until space travel gets so cheap we can slingshot disposable rockets full of trash straight into the sun, that great galactic incinerator.

I’d go into more detail on this and the obvious role black holes can play in trash disposal next week, but I’d be lying. That seems like a lot of work. I’ll instead just re-run this post.

What would you expect from such a committed recycler?

Related …

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Trashy guy hungering for a litter free neighborhood

I apologize in advance for what I’m about to write because I know it’s bound to sound really, really elitist and we all know how evil elitists are -- at least until we need a couple of them to clean up an incomprehensible $700 billion market collapse.

That being said, here goes:

McDonald’s Restaurants attract trash.

That may sound harsh, but I can prove it. I know because this summer I reached a breaking point about litter in my neighborhood and by my neighborhood, I mean anywhere that’s roughly the width of a sidewalk of where I’m walking.

I do a lot of strolling. Always have. I don’t believe in the no pain/no gain method of exercising. In fact, if something’s even the least bit painful, I stop right away and head to the nearest tavern for soothing refreshment.

I know too many middle aged people like me who suffer painful accidents trying to stay in shape. I have no intention of snapping my Achilles tendon playing basketball, getting shin splints playing tennis, or pulling a muscle while jogging.

I’m so careful I forfeit any activity that’s likely to result in armpit sweat stains.

So for exercise, I walk. I amble. I saunter. I sidle. I tromp. I ramble. I hoof. I gambol. It’s perfectly pleasant and it exercises the mind as much as the midsection. I wave to the old people sitting on the porches, admire the changing seasons and generally commune with my little corner of the world.

But if you walk anyplace in this overcrowded world these days, you’re likely to trip over trash. This happens to me a lot. It never fails to amaze me how many people will simply drop a cup, cigarette pack or Biggie Sized french fry container on the ground rather than walk a few yards to a nearby trash container.

It’s not like there’s a shortage of them either. Heck, you could argue that the world’s practically littered with litter receptacles, too.

Being an observant sort, I couldn’t help but notice how much litter I literally had to step over.

On the way to the grocery store with my daughter, I counted three pieces of idle trash directly between our parked car and the front door. Had I stumbled along in a drunken weave the number would have risen to about eight.

No more, I thought. I bent to pick up each one that was in my way. Josie, who at the age of 8 is already beginning to sense what a torturous embarrassment I’m going to be to her in about two years, asked why I was picking up trash that wasn’t mine.

“It’s not my trash. But it’s my neighborhood. It’s my planet. We all do little things to keep our homes clean. Why shouldn’t we do little things to keep our town clean?”

This made perfect sense, but little did I realize the danger of my logic. I began taking a plastic bag on my walks and picking up any trash in my way. I’ve become sort of a hobby garbageman. I do all the duties noble garbagemen do -- pick up and dispose of trash -- but I do them for free.

And I wonder how many off-duty garbagemen pick up trash in their spare time. Or are they like professional golfers who can’t stand the thought of playing golf on vacation? I’d like to know.

And that brings me to McDonald’s. I tell you, the place is a trash magnet.

The Pond, the friendly tavern above which I work, has very clean parking lots. That’s a credit to the owner, his employees and customers, and to all the parents who raised them.

McDonald’s is another matter entirely. The place is practically surrounded by ugly brown trash cans stationed there like North Korean soldiers standing guard duty over the De-Militarized Zone, but you can practically wade through the trash there. And trash bearing the McDonald’s logo stretches for a mile in both directions.

I stoop down and pick it all up.

What is it about McDonald’s trash that it can’t make its way into the trash cans so near and needy? Is it McDonald’s customers who themselves are trashy? Were they raised by ravenous wolves? Is there something in the special sauce that makes McDonald's customers so careless about simple civic matters? Who knows?

I thought about this during a long walk this morning and all I know is this.

I’ve suddenly got a hankering for a Big Mac and fries.