Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Recycle? Of course we ....DO!

Paper:
Every once in a great while, our old newspapers fall off the shelf where they are stored. When that happens, we know it’s time to pack them up and take them to their new home: the recycle dumpster. I assure you, there's no altruistic motive in this. The papers simply take up too much space in our trash and the paper recycle dumpster is next to my daughter’s school. It works out nicely, and I always hope some neighbor sees me as I head off to recycle things.

Bottles:
We live in a state where we pay deposits on pop bottles. While many people simply drink and throw the bottle out, I am a bit too cheap to lose my money. So once our bottle basket gets full, it’s off to the store we go to return our bottles. I made $4.00 dollars yesterday. I only hope that those watching noticed that most of my bottles were diet pop.

Of all the members of this family, my 10 year old son is the one who loves science class. He also really loves the Lord. Last week, this fine boy came home from a school assembly where the topic was recycling.

In his words:
“Please, Mommy, please! We need to start recycling. The Earth needs this. I think God wants us to be responsible.”

Caution responds:
“I do recycle. Haven’t you seen me take the papers to the dumpster? Haven’t you helped me pack pop bottles?”

Child:
“That’s a good start. Do you know how long plastics and glass sit in landfills? If we recycle, we would reduce our trash in landfills by 2/3. Do you know it takes thousands of years to break down glass?”

Caution gets defensive:
“I do recycle. Haven’t you seen me take the papers to the dumpster? Haven’t you helped me pack pop bottles?”

Child rebuts:
“It would take just a little effort to become more responsible for our planet. You can order a recycle bin and it won’t cost any extra. Could we please, please, please do more to recycle?”

And so we witness the transition of Caution from messy, cheap mother to caretaker of the Earth. Thank-you very much, Mrs. Science Teacher. I am ordering the red recycle bin today.

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