recycle guy gives me a thumbs up

I separate my recycling. Even though, at one point, I was told that the whole bin was upended into the back of the truck willy-nilly...I still separated the plastic from the metal from the paper. It just seemed like a good, pious, righteous thing to do. Some people mocked me.

We walked out of the house yesterday morning just as the recycling truck pulled up. They started emptying our bins (yes, I ordered a second one, fucking earth-mother-tree-hugger that I've become) into two different compartments and the guy looked up at me and said, "good job on separating your recycling!"

I practically beamed. A gold star from the garbage man. Mock me now, suckers.

therapeutic recycling

Stop making that face. This is not a lecture on recycling.

Okay, I'm a liar. This IS absolutely a lecture on recycling.

First, forget all the small print: yes, it is better to reduce and reuse and yes, energy is used to recycle and yes, it's inconvenient and yes, we don't know exactly how much really ends up being used, blah-bah-blah...because we're throwing away tons of shit that we don't need to throw away. It is wrong on every level. It fucks up our planet, it leaves poison for our children to deal with, hurts our economy and I'm even considering that it destroys our collective soul in an atheistic sort of way. Hell, MacGyver would take all this crap and build another planet with it–all I'm suggesting is that we crunch it up and make something else from it. Like welcome mats or tote bags or something.

Houston is not what you might call an environmentally conscious kind of city. What with the redness of it all and that frontier logic: if god didn't want me to fill up dumpsites, he wouldn't have put 'em there and given me this big honkin' sweet pickup truck.

However, even in Houston recycling is not hard. There are places to take this stuff. There are lots of neighborhoods (like mine, ptl) that have curbside pickup. CURBSIDE PICKUP, for christsake. It gives you no excuse and would only be easier if Mayor White actually walked into your house and carried out your green recycle bin for you. And yet, there are tons of cretins who don't recycle. Jesus Christ on a flapjack, that ticks me off.

Anyhow. We had a party for our dear friend and playwright, Eric, some weeks ago. I may have mentioned it. It was a great fun affair. Much wine and beer was consumed. Now, while my neighborhood does have curbside pickup, they no longer pick up glass. So, we stacked up all the bottles and toted them to the recycling drop-off this past weekend. Here is an aspect of recycling that should appeal to most people (even you earth abusers): we had to throw each kind of glass (clear, green, amber) into separate, enormous containers. They look like industrial barges or rail cars or something.

What
a
fucking
blast.

Go ahead, throw the first one. It has to go pretty far. It crashes and breaks with THE MOST SATISFYING SOUND. I mean, this was (no offense, dear Dr. Ding) better than therapy. Throw, crash, repeat. I was thoroughly exorcised by the time we reached the end of my pile. I only wish I had more bottles in my bin.

Whack-a-mole, step aside. I've discovered breaking glass.

To recap: RECYCLE.

PS. I know there's a Democratic convention going on, by the way. I'm just pacing myself. Besides you can just go here for great convention coverage.