Rejection and Recycling

I don't know how things work in your city or town but ours is on a new push to increase recycling and divert waste. This is a absolutely awesome idea. For the longest time they only took papers, cans and glass bottles. Most plastics and cartons were mysteriously disallowed.

With this new selection of recyclable materials came a guide to each house specifically detailing which items were acceptable and how items were to be prepared. Exactly how large your cardboard had to be cut to and how the papers were to bundled etc..

As any ecologically responsible citizen would do, I diligently follow these directions and put by blue box(es) out on the curb each week. The friendly men in the trucks roll up and down the street saving the world box by box. They stop in front of my house and jump off the truck and scurry over to my box. After a furtive glance at the contents they decide that something in there doesn't quite look right and decide that my recycling isn't good enough for them. Waste management snobbery!

I never thought that the rejection that people feel in high school at the dances when they didn't have a date, or in gym class when getting picked last could carry over to the real world. But here are the recycling men snubbing my recyclables. I drive home and pick up the box and try to calm down my recyclable goods as they weep uncontrollable. I tell them that it's ok, that they're special too and not to pay any attention to the mean men in the coveralls. I then peel off the sticker they put on the box that explains that they are sorry but the contents are not compliant with their requirements. All the helpful boxes that are there to help me learn what went wrong are unchecked and the mystery of why it was left remains along with a box of materials.

At least it's an improvement over the old days when they would empty the acceptable contents of the box into the truck and throw the unacceptable gods onto my lawn. Those poor items were positively distraught. There was no consoling most of those. I even had a few containers talk about suicide. No fun and many long nights of talking to them to calm them down. I think the funniest part is that, just like a high school dance, I put the exact same stuff out next week and the box got picked up and totally emptied out.

I love to help do my part and some days it takes some serious willpower when they abandon a box. It would be way easier to just empty the box into a garbage bag and just throw it all into a landfill. Then I listen to the cries of the cartons and wonder, how would I have felt if I got home after a dance and, while moping about not having anyone dance with me, my parents tossed me out for adoption.

Poor things. They deserve another chance so I'll talk to them and get them ready for next week. I'm sure someone will dance with them this time.