Recycling

A look at recycling in a “non-green” area.

I am from Oregon, land of no sales tax, land of no self service gas, land of the first or one of the first “bottle bills” (a five cent deposit on soda and beer cans and bottles). Recycling is big in our state. Most everything is recycled in Oregon. Under the sink in our kitchen are two containers. The smaller one is for garbage and the larger one is for recycling. Every week when we put out the trash bin for the sanitation truck, there is a larger bin sitting next to it. One week it is a bin for yard debris such as trimmed branches, grass clippings, etc. Theses are taken to an area and turned into yard mulch to be sold for yards, gardens, etc. On the alternate week, the household recycling bin sits next to the trash bin. In the bin are all recycling materials including plastic water bottles and milk jugs, plastic vegetable containers, paper, cardboard. Glass bottles go in a separate small bin and used motor oil is put in plastic milk jugs, both at the curb.

One reason the throw away bin is so small is that food items such as egg shells, apple cores, coffee grounds all go in the five gallon pail that sits outside our back door. When it’s full it gets carried out and added to the mulch box out back behind the shed. The mulch next year makes a nice addition to the flower beds.

So this brings me to the Southwest, meaning Arizona and New Mexico. Two things we noticed as we drove around, soda and beer cans and bottles along the highways. (See a previous blog concerning litter) I’m not saying that you don’t see litter in Oregon, but because of the five cent deposit , people are less apt to throw. Without it……

And then there is Styrofoam. You do not see it in Oregon. It may have been banned, but you do not get your take-out in foam. You do not get your drinks in foam. Your shipping items are protected with bio-degradable “peanuts” instead of foam ones. Down here? I shutter when I see Styrofoam used everywhere.

Because we are working in a federal facility, an attempt is made to recycle. There is a bin at the headquarters for paper and at the maintenance yard there is a trailer where cardboard, aluminum cans, and numbers 1 & 2 plastic is collected (but must be in plastic sacks). Theses are then hauled into town along with the park’s trash. Because we are so far out in the sticks, there is no garbage service available. I don’t know the locals do around here, probably burn their trash.

The point I am trying to make it that recycling works and the more we do it, the more it will be available to all of us everywhere, even in Arizona and New Mexico.