Move over reading, ‘ritin’, and ‘rithmatic, there’s a new ‘three R’s’ in town – return, reuse, and recycle.
Our town started going green many years ago, but it’s always been kind of a pale, washed out green. Basically they added a recycling truck to the weekly garbage pick up, and in the beginning we just threw everything recyclable into one (or more) clear plastic bags. It was taken to the recycling plant and sorted there.
Then one day, without warning, they changed their minds about what was recyclable. It made for a lot of confusion and a lot of bags that had to be re-opened and sorted through to pluck out the offending items. We grumbled a lot, but obeyed the rules.
Now the town has gone and done it again. While the addition of the green bins (for compostable items) is more than welcome, there is also a new degree of separation for everything else. And just to give us a little more incentive to go to all that trouble, they reduced the number of bags of garbage we can put out.
But wait! It gets better! While the blue and grey boxes came with helpful little brochures telling you specifically what goes in each, the green bin did not. It was supposed to, the ones in my daughter’s neighbourhood did, but someone missed the boat in my neighbourhood so it’s anyone’s guess what goes in there.
There was, however, a single sample of the Glad compostable bags, and a smaller covered pail, presumably to go under your sink – should you have room for it. Which brings us to the final problem. Where are all these bins supposed to go?
You can’t keep them outside because they’ll get blown around by the wind. And the green bin is just regular plastic – the skunks, raccoons, and whathaveyou would have a field day with it. We had to get a heavy duty, critter proof garbage can just to keep our garbage safe overnight (you’re supposed to put the garbage out the night before pick up).
As you can see by the picture, there’s no way we can keep these in the kitchen. You can just see where I keep the current recycling bin beside the stove (the light blue clear bag sticking out). The bag is inside a wrapping paper bin, which is easily half the width of the new bin. My kitchen is tiny – the bins are not.
But back to the sorting for a moment. We can no longer recycle textiles (before we just had to make sure they were in their own bag), or food pouches, or chip bags/candy wrappers, or pet food bags. We can recycle take-out coffee cups, but not their lids. We can recycle paper towels, but not facial tissues.
Did I mention our town is about 60% seniors? Do they really think all those senior are going to deal with these huge bins and all that sorting every week?
I think the town is in for one big headache come September.
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