Sunday service now starts at 9:30
by Barbara Roberts
When recycling became “a thing” in the 1970s after the first Earth Day, I was smitten by the idea that trash could be organized! I’m sure that was partially due to my career as a librarian and the need for order, but I thought it was such fun to separate things out for waste pick-up. At that time, recycling was just cans and glass. Recycling has come a long way since then and so has the word “garbage”, a term which doesn’t mean much to me anymore. But the word “landfill” is more descriptive and rather frightening. Things put in landfills never disappear and that gives me pause.
A new goal of mine is to not put out my gray landfill container for pickup more than once a month. It is the smallest container I own and I try not to fill it, doing my best to recycle and compost. But I have been learning that to accomplish that I need to change some habits. So much of what does end up in my gray landfill bin are plastics that are not 1, 2, or 5 recyclable. For example, I make a point of purchasing recycled paper napkins and toilet paper, yet they are wrapped in plastic that can’t be recycled! Frustrating.
So in order to accomplish my almost zero landfill goal, here are some things I am doing to reduce what I put in my gray bin:
I’m finding that this is not an easy task I have given myself. But it feels good to think that I might have a small, positive impact on our earth – one habit chance at a time.