I’m lazy. Willie had brought home a big box full of leftover Wheatfields pasty items after he worked on Saturday. He worked at Wheatfields from January to August, and although he loves the stuff, he’s also sick of it. So he didn’t eat any. I’m not sick of it, so I ate my share, and Rick ate some too. But here it is Tuesday, and the remainder is bricklike and unattractive.
I picked up the cardboard box to toss it out. It contained crumbs, a partial scone, and part of another unknown pastry item, maybe an apple thing. I thought “I’m just going to throw this whole thing away. The heck with recycling and being conscious of the environment.”
Then I got it out to the garage. I could perfectly easily put the leftover food bits in the compost instead of in the trash barrel. And if I did that, the box could just as easily go in the cardboard recycling. So that’s what I did – pastry in the compost, box in the recycling.
This time I did the right thing (although more later on the recycling business), but many times I have just consigned things to the landfill when with a few minutes thought I could at least make a more conscious choice in how I dispose of my detritus (=junk).
You’d think that we would get in the habit of composting, recycling, reusing all our junk, and that we wouldn’t have to think about it at all. So why is there such a constant temptation to put it in the trash instead of funneling the rejects to their proper place in the chain?
Because it’s so easy! No sorting or deciding, just give it the heave-ho. Plus we grew up with that method.