Recycling

I am a recycler. I used to call myself a fierce recycler back in Monterey. There you could recycle everything into one can, and boy did I ever. I was so obsessive about it that if I saw someone throw a can or bottle into the trash at my house, after they left I would go through the trash and fish it out to recycle. I have always had a box under my desk for junk mail and old papers and when it got full I would just take it out to the big can. And everything plastic went out to recycle. We were allowed to recycle all the plastic with the numbers in the triangle from 1 through 7. That covers just about all plastic. I was proud of myself for being such a fierce recycler.

Then we moved to Spokane. Where they hardly recycle anything. They take cans, some bottles, and plastic soda and milk jugs, only the triangle number 1. Triangles 2 through 7 just go into the trash. And paper, NO, only newspaper and corrugated cardboard. Junk mail is considered "mixed waste" and in order to recycle it you have to go to a special company and PAY THEM to take it. Which I have done. At first it really bugged me to throw something in the trash that I know is recyclable. But now you should see the way I am tossing those sour cream and yogurt containers into the trash like I don't care, almost relieved that I have one less thing to rinse out! What has happened to me? I am no longer the fierce recycler I imagined myself to be. So I have demoted myself to just recycler, hoping for the day the City of Spokane is able to take everything recyclable in one can so I can take my title back.