Recycling is a Defeatist Action

You drop something into (say) a blue recycling bin, and a wash of pride sweeps over you; you have done your “bit” for society. If only everyone would follow your good example. You should get a medal!

Wrong.

The abbreviated form of the garbage mantra is “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. Recycling is the last item on that abbreviated version, and is the last item on the full version.

To recycle something today means “drop it in a bin somewhere and pay someone else to move it out of my sight”. Typically a landfill site.

To recycle something today means “I can’t be bothered” or more commonly “I can’t think”.

Consider setting up a trial; make a bin for your food-scraps; include coffee-grinds, tea-leaves, carrot peelings, apple cores and so on. This material is part of what we call Bio-Mass and Bio-Mass includes newspaper and cardboard, leaves, lawn clippings.

A basic truth is that anything that grew from the earth can be returned to the surface of the earth. The surface of the earth is visible to you in your backyard. A landfill site is NOT the surface of the earth. A landfill site is a sub-terranean volume.

So, after a week of separating kitchen (and other) scraps into your Bio-Mass pail, tip your Bio-Mass pail into a compost bin, and cover it lightly with a layer of grass clippings or soil.

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