We’ve been doing recycling for several years. I’m pretty happy that itt’s reduced our garbage output by more than half. I go down to the Eureka recycling center every other week. They’ve recently made it simpler and faster by reducing the amount of sorting you have to do considerably.
What’s funny, or sad, depending on my mood, is the number of huge SUVs that roll in to the transfer station to recycle struggling to squeeze in to a parking space in order to unload their few tubs of recycling materials.
I know we can’t all be in perfect alignment with green living precepts, but there is something increasingly egregious about these huge vehicles lumbering around in face of climate change, raising gas prices and the political and security hazards that dependency on imported oil imposes on us.
recycling is very important these days because we have lots of pollution~.’
we should always think about recycling our waste products to help the environment.:*:
When I lived in the Bay Area on the peninsula I would see the big SUVs from my neighborhood drive 4 blocks to drop their kids off at school. Same for the 8 block trip to the soccer field. It is encouraging to see kids here walk to school and even to the park.
This post reminded me of Earth Day in Balboa Park in San Diego. Every year, thousands of giant, suburban SUVs would descend upon uptown and circle the blocks in search of convenient parking. The families would pour out and shlep to the event where they would fill the trash receptacles with thousands of plastic water bottles, cardboard/mylar “juice” containers and all of the other crap that modern American families discard every day.
“Hopeful,” is what we called this.
Bob, didn’t you know that the Chevy Tahoe is the Green Car of the Year?
Seriously, though, driving and car-culture present disproportionate impacts on the environment. I calculate that, using average figures, the climate change emissions per year generated from the waste of one person who doesn’t recycle are about one-tenth of their climate change emissions from driving (http://www.reduceimpact.com/).
Now, this comparison doesn’t consider all the embedded energy of producing the products and packaging which are thrown out (but neither does the driving figure consider the embedded energy for the car). It’s just a stab at offering some quantified comparison.