Seriously, I have nothing against the south. My grandparents live there, my aunts and uncles live there, my cousins are there (some of each). And I have good memories of visiting there. As a yank with a simpathetic accent, I enjoy when i adapt the southern drawl to my speech, I feel more relaxed.
That being said, I can’t believe that there are places in this country that still do not offer any sort of recycling program. Now, forgive me, I am picking on the south. I don’t know what our dear western or middle states do. But I do know that a medium sized town doesn’t recycle in South carolina, and that parts of Alabama don’t recycle either. I feel like some of my Michigan college housemates didn’t know how to recycle either.
Really??? There are people growing up that don’t know how to be economical, discretionary, and concious about their trash? And if they don’t know how to take care of their trash, they’re not going to think twice about buying the number 5 plastic container when a perfectly comparable item is presented in a glass container. (I’m not saying that by growing up learning how to recycle you’re able to make that choice either… but to not even give someone a chance.) That also means that there’s crap in our landfills that could have been downcycled (the true process). I’m not going to go down that path – just read Cradle to Cradle and think about the biological products vs. the technical products he talks about.
That’s all I wanted to point out. I realize that most likely/ most of the time the enegry used to gather, sort, and reuse materials probably leaves a worse footprint on the environment than just throwing the crap out, But in an age where global warming is mostly unarguable that it’s happening (not the cause), I’m shocked that there are still places that don’t recycle.
Side note: using my brain in a cradle to cradle way – instead of trying to modify the trash system to fit a recycling program that really only downcycles the items, why not create a new system, one that might use less energy, sort out the stuff differently than our industrial factory model from the industrial revolution?
It’s something to think about.
I have to admit, one thing I dread if we have to move out of Northern California is moving away from sophisticated recycling. Everywhere one goes here there are three containers: Paper / Bottles, Plastic / Trash. The California Academy of Science labels the last one “Landfill”.
Wow. I think there’s a lot that California does right in regards to the environment. There’s a lot that is wrong with California too, but what state doesn’t have issues? The NY senate (or whatever) Republicans threw a coupe! We’re in a democracy for goodness sake you can’t have a coupe!
I think it’s great that it’s called “Landfill” not garbage. Because that’s where it goes, so label it accordingly. But then we’d have to change our recycle bins to say downcycle. well… i won’t get picky here. I like Landfill. oooooooo, “Recycle (Paper/Plastic/Glass/Metal), Compost, Landfill” Those should be the three distinctions for trash. Well regardless…. Thanks for sharing!! I think that’s great!! Go California, may the rest of the USA step up so that you can move from N CA happily.