How??
I can't remember a day when my brain was this unwilling to concentrate on anything. I really wanted to get a lot accomplished on several fronts, especially prep for my camp speaking gig in August. Nope. Just could not get the juices flowing. Read in my books w/o comprehension, stared at the laptop screen without inspiration and just generally wasted what should have been a productive day.
A friend on Facebook posted this video. I read all of the text and didn't understand a lick of it. But the video is cool.
Maybe I've heard this quote before, but somebody on the radio used it this morning and I liked it:
"Fatigue makes cowards of us all." - Vince Lombardi
The new issue of WORLD Magazine arrived today. They've begun their regular focus on each of the Presidential candidates, one per issue, and this first in the series is about Newt Gingrich.
Shortly after getting the magazine out of the mailbox I read online that almost his entire paid staff resigned en masse today. Timing is everything, huh WORLD?
Early this year Pam decided we were going to recycle. Our trash company comes by every other Wednesday and picks up whatever recyclable stuff we've put out at the curb at no extra cost. We don't even have to sort it. So she got one of those rectangular plastic laundry baskets (??) and I cleared a space for it between her sewing unit and the wall.
In an effort to be a cooperative husband ("My dad would be so proud of us.") I somewhat reluctantly joined the effort. We toss almost all our paper trash, crushed aluminum cans and recyclable plastic, stuff like milk jugs, into the basket. The normal garbage truck goes through our neighborhood on alternate Wednesdays and they empty our basket into the back of the truck and head on down the street to the next participating house.
I told Pam last week I think the whole thing is a waste at least (pun intended) and perhaps totally bogus.
We agreed that maybe one in five houses along our street participates, a rate probably consistent throughout Sun City. So against a relatively small amount of recyclable material (old people don't generate that much trash) goes the emissions of the garbage trucks driving through our neighborhoods. And of course the fuel those trucks burn. Then the man hours of the guys on the trucks and the fuel + emissions they burned getting to work on a day they otherwise would have had off.
Somebody, or some machine has to sort that collection when it gets back to the yard. More expense and more energy consumed. Then it has to be transported to whatever center(s) processes the stuff. Yet more expense and energy.
All of this for 20% of the households in Sun City and a relatively small amount of material. Nope, I can't make that math work. In fact, I think someone from 20/20 or Dateline needs to surreptitiously follow one of those trucks back to the yard. I suspect we'd discover they're being unloaded into the same huge semi's we see hauling the regular trash to the landfill.
However, despite my deep skepticism I will continue to place my recyclable trash in the plastic basket. Yeah, you know why, too.
2 comments:
I don't know if it works out money-wise in Seattle, but here recycling is the law. You have to do it, and you have to pay for it, and they (the recycling police, I guess) have the right to check anyone's garbage to make sure.
...and don't forget that the whole recycling enterprise is heavily subsidized by Federal, State, and Local tax dollars. I personally think that recycling is to some extent good stewardship, but that we should not forget that it is a luxury our wealth affords us.
Mike H.
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