I have a paisley notebook that is almost too pretty to use. It would make a perfect diary if I did calligraphy and wanted to be a diarist. Finally you would understand the enchantment of living in Whatsitville, a Midwestern town described by a friend as “a good night’s sleep.” That’s a compliment, isn’t it? It is also an unusually pretty place to live.
Years later, the “diary” is unused. The only thing on my mind these days is the sad loveliness of climate change and our helplessness in a tragically polluted world.
And so I have scribbled a brief recycling diary.
There’s no harm in recycling. We are cycling and recycling as fast as we can.
Four Days in the Life of a Recyclist
Monday. It’s garbage day. But is it recycling day? Half the neighbors wheeled out the recycling bins with the garbage bins. The rest of us took out garbage only.
Tuesday. It was a recycling day. Shit. Get going. Recycle madly. Newspapers: OK. Throw in the recycling bin. Cereal boxes, rice boxes, oatmeal boxes: ditto. Plastic yogurt containers and milk cartons: wash or a quick rinse and then ditto. Glass: ditto. Metal: ditto, except when defective cans have jagged edges. Better to trash than take a trip to the emergency room!
Wednesday. A pile of magazines and catalogues slide off the table and fan out on the floor. It’s like a paper slither-siren to remind you to recycle mags. Paper is organic: it can not only be recycled into new paper, it decomposes in 10 years in the landfill. But the goal is recycling. Keep it out of the landfill!
I do wish I could keep the mag stash: a 2004 issue of The Nation with a cover photo of Kerry, several Vermont Country Store catalogues featuring Lenz flannel nightgowns and foot massagers, a special issue of People about Prince Harry and Meghan, a fiction issue of The New Yorker from 2012, and…regretfully we recycle all of it!
Thursday. What to do with plastic? There is toxic plastic in all of us now: in fish, fowl, and mammals. Nothing we can do about it.
Here’s the good news for recycling plastic objects: there are two kinds of plastic, one recyclable and one eternal, and you can recycle any plastic with the numbers 1, 2, or 5 (usually on the bottom of the container). These are milk cartons, dish soap bottles, and similar containers. These plastics can eventually be melted and broken up and cut into small pieces and made into other containers.
Alas, some plastics do not break down at all. They cannot be recycled. They can never be reused. That plastic lasts forever. And NO plastics, not even the recyclable kind, will EVER break down in the landfill.
Special Addition (Edition): The Drama of Food Waste
The Drama of Food Waste. According to the EPA, Americans waste tons of food. One-third of food intended for humans is casually thrown in the garbage and trucked to landfills, where it decomposes very fast, in the process emitting 170 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and methane, an even more potent greenhouse gas.
Solution: Eat your leftovers! In World War II. women did not waste food. They cooked leftover noodles with eggs, used chicken necks and and every leftover vegetable in broth, soup, or casseroles.
You can also buy less food.
And you can compost apple cores, veg waste, coffee, tea bags, etc.Our
Keep as much out of the landfills as possible.
END OF FABULOUS RECYCLING DIARY!