Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - Why I Do What I Do

One of my favorite books as a kid was "50 Things Kids Can Do To Save The Earth". I didn't really understand at the time, but it truly shaped my perception of recycling. It started out simply: aluminum cans, plastic bottles - both easily identifiable, plentiful considering that our family drank a fair amount of soda, and recycling centers gave out money for them. But I noticed that the centers had bins for newspaper, tubs for tin cans, and several bins for glass. Even if they didn't pay much for them, or even at all, I started to wonder at the waste that could be averted with some careful sorting.

The word "green" wasn't really in use until I was well into high school. Our school - like many newer facilities at the time - was outfitted with receptacles for recycling, particularly bottles and cans. Though my friends sometimes scoffed (or were even just grossed out), I would remove soda cans from the trash and place them in the recycling bin. I realized that, sure, one can might not make a huge difference... but if I saved one extra can a day, that was 364 cans a year. Even one a week was another 52 cans that didn't end up in a landfill. That meant a lot more to me than most people.

See, my parents worked for the Forest Service in their youth. They would maintain trails, repair signs, and clean out fire pits. Sometimes campers left trash everywhere. Even as campers ourselves, sometimes we would find old cans sticking out of the dusty ground, where we could easily step on it and cut ourselves. It was an eyesore, a hazard, and it was certainly no good for the environment. Nothing breaks up the beauty of a sunrise by the South Fork of the Stanislaus River like a floating beer can that some careless fisherman tossed aside. So litter was a personal thing to me, on top of knowing that cleaning up after myself was the proper thing to do. And being fond of the wild places, wanting to preserve them, I knew recycling what we already have in use was the best way to keep the wild places pristine: turning in as much recyclable material as possible meant less waste in landfills, meaning they filled up more slowly, meaning they needed less space and less frequently. It also meant that fewer mines and refineries would be required to acquire new material. There was no drawback. It was logically the correct thing to do.

The only issue is one of effort. Sadly, a number of people find it to simply be too much hassle to separate bottles of glass, take it all down to a recycling center, and wait for someone to parse through everything. The time commitment and effort to maintain a recycling habit is often enough to make some people simply throw out their recyclables. That became even easier as the trend caught on, however, and by the time I was in college many dining facilities, bus stops, and public parks were outfitted with recycling receptacles. For the home-residents, garbage pickup services started offering at-home recycling pickup. Sure, you didn't get paid for it, but it almost eliminated the effort required.

Every time a new method was introduced, I incorporated it into my personal habits. Now I set aside recyclables at home, everything from newspaper to regular batteries; at the office, I help maintain the receptacles by keeping them clean and tidy, and emptying them as appropriate into the outside collections; when I go out on a hike or on a road trip, I make sure to pack out all my trash, and have a separate bag to collect things we can recycle when we get home. I try to help the practice gather momentum as well by educating kids on what can be recycled (my niece was ecstatic when I told her that she could recycle batteries), I encourage my peers to start up the practice, and I also set a positive example by being consistent.

I hope that I will eventually be able to whittle down how much I actually have to throw away to nothing. These days I'm even composting organic materials, so there's even less waste going into the garbage can every week. As time goes by, more and more efficient methods of manufacturing produce less waste, and our methods of reusing material become even more diverse. It is my fervent hope that we will eventually be able to completely self-sustain as a species, and no longer find it necessary to acquire more resources in order to maintain our lifestyles.