[Loud groan] “You can’t put frozen packaging in the recycling bin.”
The concept of recycling, while super beneficial to society, appears to be entirely too complex to apply. How else to explain the number of times I have, (patiently, I believe, though he might argue), had to explain the nuances of what gets recycled to my otherwise amazingly brilliant husband. Admittedly, it can get confusing. Some plastic is okay while some is not. Cardboard might look fine, but any waxy stuff on it and there is nooooo way it can go in the bin. I understand that it is enough to make a grown person call it quits and simply throw anything and everything into recycling (seriously… tin foil???) In the olden days, when life was simple, we just had reuse, repurpose, or refuge. Canning jars got reused. Old t-shirts were repurposed as cleaning cloths. Horse manure made great compost. And broken wooden toys got throw in the fireplace. With progress, though, came the ability to create stuff so durable that it could outlast everything but a two year old. What to do with that two foot synthetic stuffed animal that no longer had eyes or an arm? Throw it away, of course. Except…. Imagine a dump filled with odd assortments of items a two year old has destroyed. It would not be a pretty site. In fact, it would probably be the stuff horror stories are based on. Magnified by our use of synthetic material on everything and that dump has gotten out of control. I’d like to think I try to make a difference. But in fact, I am as much a part of the problem as anyone. The water bottles alone that I dump each year could probably fill my backyard. And though for a while I tried to use a reusable water bottle, the hassle factor eventually wore me down so that I continue to use and toss as I had been doing. But while I continue to strive to be better at using less and recycling more, the real problem I am fighting is figuring out which stuff can go in which bin. Organizing, in general, is sort of an obsession with me. So, you can see where this issue would both peak my interest as well as overwhelm me. It would be like giving me something that looks and acts like Tupperware, but then telling me I can’t store it with my other containers. The complexity of organizing would be unmanageable. So I understand where my husband struggles, really I do. If I could, I would live my life in my favorite store, New Seasons. There they have simplified the process of throwing things away. Pictures to tell me what goes where, canisters for each thing, limited choice of containers to only those that go into one of the bins they make available and pictures they show: this is how I would like to live my life. I suppose the moral of the story is that more choice isn’t necessarily always a good thing. It would be fine if all of that waste didn’t add up to an earth overcome with garbage; but it does. So although I refuse to put pictures of all of our different types of garbage on my refuse and recycling bins, I do think it is time to simplify the challenge. If it is too difficult to decide where to throw the empty ice cream container, well then I suppose I will have to stop buying ice cream for the family. And then, we’ll see how long it takes my otherwise perfect hubby to catch on to the fact that frozen containers don’t go in recycling. Where are you on the spectrum of recycling? Do you have a good way to remember what goes where? I love, love, love to hear your comments, so please leave me some. No, really! And to prove how much I love hearing from you (and I know you are out there, because I get statistics on how many people visit this fun blog:>) I will donate $10 to the charity of choice for one lucky commenter in the month of November. Simply leave a comment and then check back at the end of the moth to see if you won.
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“Hundreds attend the funeral of someone they didn’t even know.”
I love this story! Harold Jellicoe Percival was in the Royal Air Force in England and served during WWII. He died recently at age 99. And since he never married or had children, the only expected attendee of the service was a nephew. However, the funeral home hosting the service put an advertisement in the paper, inviting other veterans to come and honor his life. Over 400 people ended up attending though when the post went viral on social media. There were so many people there, in fact, that most couldn’t fit in the chapel and had to stand outside in the rain while the service was going on. (Link here for more on the BBC story.) Listening to the newsflash about the memorial service I was struck by curiosity about why so many people who didn’t even know him attended. Yes, he was a veteran. As ground crew he inspected and repaired planes that flew over France during battles. He had not been decorated a hero. There was no autobiography making him famous, no site named after him. People came, simply to honor a man who served. To me it feels like people rarely pay attention to individual stories unless they have had a direct and tangible impact on their own life. We are grateful, I think, for holidays, like Veterans’ Day or Memorial Day, when we can pay this tribute. But then again… I wonder how many people spent their Veterans Day yesterday doing something other than watching football or going bowling (the two things we ended up doing with our day.) I think this is why this overheard was so immediately heart warming for me. I realized, in thinking about this memorial service attended by so many, that each life story deserves to be told and honored. Deserves, if nothing else, an a tweetable epitaph. Mr. Percival knew how to fix engines and fight the Nazis. He loved cricket. Nomadic by nature, he carried a backpack to travel. #tweetpitaph I am so glad to see that, in this case, Mr. Harold Percival was honored with far more than 140 characters. Is there anyone you would like to honor with a tweetpitaph? Did you do anything special to honor Veterans’ Day? I love to hear from my blog readers. And to prove it, I am donating $10 to the non-political charity of one lucky commenter this month. Leave a comment for any of my blogs, and then check back at the end of the month to see if your name was drawn. |
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June 2020
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