Jun 28, 2009

It's a Chain, Gang!

Yes, that’s right. I’m posting on a Sunday. And no, this is not going to be a habit, this is just a special occasion.

As I mentioned a few days ago, I signed up for the AW Blog Chain. To quote myself: "So far it’s kind of like that game of secret, where someone starts off with a secret and tells it to the next person, who tells it to the next person and so on around a circle. The first poster started off with a post about global warming and each person is writing their own take on the post that went before them. It should be interesting to see where this ends up."

My post is following Dnic at Four-Lettered Words.

Dnic posted about some really unique solutions to the whole global warming/save the environment issue. I think my favorite would have to be the goats being used to trim your grass.

It’s interesting that we’re posting about global warming and saving the environment when we’ve been discussing this in marketing class at school. Marketers are emphasizing environmentally friendly products these days and companies are looking to help out with environmental issues. Go green everyone! Reduce, reuse and recycle!

I remember when our town first got a recycling program. Every household was issued a blue plastic box (made, I’m sure, of recycled plastic) and we were given explicit instructions on how to bundle up our newspaper, and clean out our glass, plastic, and cans. And that was pretty much all we were allowed to recycle.

Then a spiffy new recycling plant was built to service the whole county. A new list of instructions was issued with an amazing array of things that could be recycled now. The best part was, we didn’t have to separate anything anymore. Just throw everything from the list into a clear, or clear blue, plastic bag and the plant would take care of the rest. At the same time, we started having to pay for garbage tags and were limited to three bags per household. I believe this was to encourage recycling.

A couple of years ago, things suddenly changed. Our bags of recycling were being left at the curbside. Apparently the recycling plant wasn’t making enough of a profit so we were back to having to separate things. Paper had to be shredded. Things that were recyclable previously were no longer included. The list got shorter again. But, just to make sure we kept recycling as much as possible, our garbage tags went up in price.

I have to confess, I don’t recycle as much as I used to because it’s become a real pain in the you-know-what. But I do have a suggestion . . .

Canada has something called the Young Offender’s Act, which personally, I find very offensive as it’s all about protecting the rights of young criminals, no matter what kind of laws they’re breaking. Anyway, instead of having these kids get a slap on the wrist or getting to choose some sort of cushy community service, put them to work in the recycling plants. Not only will it give them a taste of the real world, it’ll also give them something useful to do.

You can check out the rest of the chain by clicking on the following links. Next up is Truelyana and her Expressive World


Razib Ahmed: Hobby Economist
Fokker Aeroplanbau: I’m Always Right, Far Right
Bettielee: Far Seeing Fairy Tales
Bsolah: Benjamin Solah, Marxist Horror Writer
Forbidden Snowflake: Delirious
Rosemerry: Beyond Tourism: Florida’’s Yesteryear
Dnic: Four-Lettered Words
Lady Cat: Random Thoughts
Truelyana: Expressive World
Tika: Tika Newman
Bill Ward: Bill Ward, Genre Writer & Reviewer
Dancingandflying: Made of Carbon

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I definitely don't recycle as I should but I do reduce and reuse. Too bad cities don't see the good in having a program in place like that and keep it running.

Snowflake said...

We don't recycle that much anymore either, somehow it seemed like a trend that just disappeared again. At certain points in the last year people would glare at you if you weren't recycling. Today that's gone again.