Earth Day

Today is Earth Day. What did I do for the planet? I remembered to take out my recycling.

Pretty exciting stuff! While it's no highway clean-up or a hemp sit-in, it's something.

I actually recycle regularly. And by regularly, I mean when I stop being lazy and dump my recycle bin from the upstairs patio into the downstairs approved bin that gets picked up about every two weeks.

I recycle just about everything I can. As it turns out, my earth-saving techniques have been honed over the last few years.

But I must confess, my green behavior is pretty selfishly driven.

It started off with turning in pop and water bottles when I lived in San Diego. Unlike Michigan, in California you can turn in just about any beverage receptacle for $.05. Not too shabby.

Then I just got greedy and started taking all the bottles off the ship.

See, on a Navy vessel you have to sort your trash. Contrary to Green Peace's thought, the Navy does its duty to save the planet. All plastic is kept, melted down and then shipped off to be recycled. I just didn't take the bottles to the compactor on the ship. Instead, I'd smuggle them off and turn them in for money. (My Senior Chief flipped his lid when he found out and told me I better not get caught, because he didn't want to hear about it in the Chief's Mess!)

When I moved east, the deposit system wasn't available. So my recycling took a giant step back.

But don't worry, I found another green choice that saved me money. Shortly after moving to Virginia, the area passed a bag tax. You pay more every time you buy something unless you bring your own bag. Then you get $.05/bag back.

I always had a million bags and I'll be damned if I got taxed for shit when using my own bag! That pocket change adds up!

Then I moved to a place that had curb-side recyclable pick up. I didn't have to sort a thing. I didn't have to bag anything. I just had to stick it in the blue trash can and not the green trash can. Perfect! That's easy. And you know what? It saves me money.

How? Because I'm not sticking every cereal box in a trash bag. I'm not flattening every milk jug to get it to fit better in the trash bag. I'm not worried about how I'm going to get the newspaper in the trash.

I just toss it in a bin and it saves room in the trash bag, which means I use less trash bags. Cha-Ching!

Turns out, this whole recycling thing isn't so hard after all... When I remember to wheel the bin out for the week, that is.

How did you celebrate earth day?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone