October 08, 2007
I’m developing some sense of how people who, despite their awareness that the way we live is destroying the planet on a daily basis, can just keep on living their lives the same way. It's partly convenience and habit. You can tell someone, "Hey, I'm taking bottles and cans and stuff to the recycling place. If you want to set yours aside and give them to me, I'll take them when I go." I did that this summer. And while many people comment how good it is of me to do that, they don't put anything aside to recycle. Those people may put cans, etc, in a recycling container if it's right there next to the trash can and someone else takes care of emptying it. But there are still those who won't even do that.
There was a summer theatre day camp in the same building as the actor housing. Daily, I walked by a trash can that was full and overflowing with bottles and cans from the lunches the kids brought from home. So I put a box with a sign that said “recycling” and listed what could be put in there. But there was always recyclable stuff put in the trash. And yes, I fished stuff out of the trash to recycle. It was amazing to me that people would choose to put things in the trash instead of in the recycling box. Is it laziness or ignorance or what?
I was also surprised by the amount of food and beverages that was thrown out: half-eaten sandwiches, etc; other things that weren't eaten at all. Is that how it is at every school in the country every day? How horrible and how easy to change. Do parents even know how much their kids are wasting? If schools or other programs made the kids take what they didn't eat or recycle back home for the parents to dispose of, maybe things would change a little. What if the parents had to sign a little slip that said they were aware of how much their kids were wasting? There's a neat idea. Anybody out there on a school board?
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