I've been trying to be more conscientious, aksing for paper instead of plastic for the groceries, rounding up the hundred-and-one old phone books we had lying around (seems like we get a new phone book every six weeks or so) and breaking down all the cardboard boxes and loading it all into the back of my Suzuki to take to the recycling bins.
Well, the first problem with that was finding the recycling bins - you know, all the blue bins that you sort your recyclables into? I've only seen one set of them, and it's in a neighborhood that I don't really drive through all that often - I have to be going there to go there. But Ken and I were down that way the other day, in the 'Zuki, and so we stopped to put all the recyclables we'd gathered into the bins.
...Or so we thought. There were maybe eight or nine bins, all labelled according to what was meant to be put into each. Colored glass, clear glass, tin, aluminum, newspaper, plastic bottles, computer paper, etc. Except that there was not a bin for cardboard. Not one for phone books, or paper other than computer paper. All the stuff we had in the back of the car, we ended up just throwing it in the dumpster, because there were no appropriately designated recycle bins for common, everyday recyclables such as cardboard, brown paper grocery sacks, or old phone books.
This town...
