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Recycling?
March 25, 2008
I really enjoy recycling the cash back plastics, cans and glass. To many of you the nickel return is not worth the effort and if your town is like my town you probably want to avoid at all costs the number of homeless and alcoholics that use recycling to eek out their existence. It's the best feeling turning items that you see as common trash into dollar bills and change. One of the first lessons I've taught my sons that as long as you do not worry about pride or what the Joneses think collecting bottles, cans and plastic is a great way to save some cash.
There is a mentality that has to be understood and I think I've a handle on it as I've done it. One empty pop bottle as you're in the car or walking in the park is trash. It seems unnatural to walk around with an empty container. But, take those empty containers and put twenty in a plastic bag and the one container(s) collected are now a one dollar bill.
But then this is not a story about recycling as much as it is a story about recycling. You see I have also often wondered what the difference in glass is between a Glass Fruit Drink that has no deposit and a beer bottle that has a deposit. They're both clear, both hold fluid so can be recycled or reused but the bottle that contained beer or soda is worth a nickel while the fruit drink is trash? With the millions of water bottles that we empty each day, all can be re-manufactured and thus reused so why would they be mounting a siege on our landfills while a flimsy version that contains soda is worth a nickel? Why is a can of Iced Tea different than a can of Orange Soda? Both made from similar materials it is clear even to the average idiot such as myself that both can be melted together to be used again.
So what I believe is that our recycling laws are not controlled by our government but rather by the manufacturers in the wavering flexibility of what constitutes recycling materials and what constitutes trash. As I understood my science, although grades of the substances differ somewhat in tensile strength and process, a can is a bloody can, a plastic bottle is a plastic bottle by any other name and a bottle, well glass is glass otherwise it would be a can or plastic.
Perhaps it's time to hold the manufacturers and consumers responsible for a total recycling program. Instead of forming a special designation for one type of recycling product from another have the manufactures either pay for their waste (the non-recycled materials) or pay for the recycling as the manufacturers of beer and soft drinks do. As consumers and looking at the prices that we have to pay lately for groceries and fuel it seems to me that the manufacturers and distributors of those products are not currently in financial straits. What is wrong with holding them accountable for the end product of their products? No one loses here. The manufacturers become a "green company" by embracing recycling and in turn gain more consumer confidence. The public of which I am one become more loyal to buying products that aide in alleviating "recycling guilt" and the homeless and those who choose these products to enhance their income will find the world a more gratuitous and gracious place.
Think about it because we really do not want to keep doing things half-way, do we?
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For too long I've messed with the wiring in my head. Now it shorts out more oft than not. But at my age I just sit and enjoy the sparks. RJM '07
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