The Junk Collector

I read an article in the Washington Times recently that was premised on some good old fashioned twentieth century thinking - that recycling is actually more costly to communities than if we sent the stuff to a landfill. The article went on to analyze this premise from a dollars and cents perspective - which I don't think is any great revelation. However, being that this was an article from the Washington Times, it completely neglected to compare the concept of recycling versus not recyling for the long-term good of the planet (the Washington Times not espousing far-left views.) Though, to give the author some credit, he did stop short of advocating throwing your empty beer cans into the river when fishing.

In the spirit of Earth Day, Maya's first grade class has been studying the environment and earth-friendly attitudes. In that context, Maya brought home a checklist the other day of all the household items that can be recycled. I was happy to see that Maya had checked off each item on the list (things like plastic, aluminum, glass, paper, compost) and had even added one of her own - bringing food scraps to the chickens at Tauxemont, her former preschool. It's nice to see Rebecca and my influences rubbing off on the girl.

Then I had these thoughts while running past a perfectly good pencil eraser, baby bottle, and red bandanna on the Mall the other day. I could very easily see myself, in fact, I nearly had to prevent myself, stopping to pick those things up. Whether they had been lost or cast away by others, they still had some use. I could take the eraser home and give it to Maya to put on her school pencil. I could run the baby bottle through the dishwasher and post it for free on Craigslist. One hot wash with Rebecca's special homemade dye and perfume free detergent and the bandanna would be perfectly fine to put on my head or mop my brow. At the very least, it could be a rag.

The problem is, once one starts down that path, where does it end? Why not stop to pick every little thing up that someone has lost or cast away that still has some use? I see plenty of pens and pencils on the ground - why not stop and pick them up? All those popsicle sticks could be picked up and stored for neat crafts. Reduce, reuse, recycle is a fine mantra for a junk collector.

And what about items that can be recycled that are left on the ground or deposited in the trash? I could spend all day every day gathering the empty gatorade bottles strewn about. Some of them might be worth 5 cents in NY. How many abandoned newspapers have I seen on the Metro or bus? Don't the Boy Scouts pay cents on the pound for old newspaper? Can I bring it to the animal shelter? It gets to be too overwhelming to think about the waste and ignorance and I have to just carry on and do what I can do.

Of course, while I am running, thinking all of this, I am listening to Van Halen's 1983 album Diver Down on my iPod. Some people would call Van Halen useless junk, yet I've been listening to the stuff for more than twenty years and I still get good use out of it (just try sitting still while listening to the Full Bug). No need to thank me, I'm just carrying on doing what I can do for the Earth.