Recyling Makes You A Better Person
I think it is possible that recycling might make you a better person. I don’t mean in a self indulgent, look how I am saving the world and you aren’t, kind of way. I mean in the general awareness that it brings to you.
I live in a community that has curb side recycling and charges for your trash. Basically, you buy city trash bags at the grocery store and the garbage men will only pick up the town bags. We have no utility bill for garbage or recycling, just the bags. At first I was not to thrilled about the idea of paying for my trash on bag at a time, but now I like it.
First, if you are paying for your trash, bag by expensive bag, you really want reduce the amount of trash you produce. With curbside recycling I am far more encouraged to wash out those plastic containers and recycle them and buy things with less packaging.
Second, as you fill up each and every bag, you are amazed at how much trash you can actually produce. It is astonishing. The immediate effect of my new trash awareness was shame. I was ashamed at how much trash we were producing.
Since living in this town, we recycle everything we possibly can. We compost everything that doesn’t have a face. We are using reusable shopping bags. I try to buy things without packaging, or little packaging. I put my fruits and veggies in one bag when possible. And after all of this, and some good composting methodology realizations, we just hit a trash producing landmark. We created only one bag of trash per two people in two weeks.
This is why I think that recycling makes you a better person. The effects of such a simple act seems to bring so much awareness to the impact of our existence. The more we do, the more we want to do because there is a pride to knowing that I am not trashing up the world.
Onward and upward! Saving money, saving the planet. It doesn’t get much better than that.
P.S. The photo is from a trash shadow art show. Amazing what trash can be turned into, click the link to see more from that show.
Save the World |2 Responses to “Recyling Makes You A Better Person”
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Bravo! I haven’t had the success you have had, but we are doing alot better than we did back when we thought we were doing good.
Figuring out the compost made all the difference! as did buying in bulk.