My roommate told me the other day, “You are a selective recycler.” My gut reaction was to be immediately offended by this comment. What do you mean I am selective! I have always considered myself to be such a friend to the environment. (I mean, come on, my favorite color is even green!) “Well, you choose to recycle when it is convenient, and you don’t always completely grasp what can and cannot be recycled.” Okay, I suppose she had a point.
I tend to assume that everything can be recycled, so, I throw it all in there. I place blame on my upbringing for this one. First of all, where I grew up, we didn’t have trash pick-up, rather we had to take the truck full of trash to the dump every week. This wasn’t your run-of-the-mill trash dump, it was a transfer station, so it was much more environmentally friendly where nearly anything could be recycled. In our pick-up truckload, we usually had one trashcan and the rest could be separated out and recycled. Consequently, I grew up with the mentality that anything could be recycled.
Furthermore, when I moved away to go to university I learned that while the school had recycle bins on campus, everything was actually combined and then re-separated. (Apparently, university students cannot be trusted to sort their own waste.) Sure enough, if you are treated like you’re an incompetent child, we all start to fall into that assumption. I stopped worrying about which bin my empty bottles fell, because hey, someone else would take care of it anyway.
That leads us to present day. I find myself falling back into the old habit of either trying to recycle everything or dumping it all in one place, with the assumption that it is sorted again. I am, of course, sadly mistaken, and my roommate is correct.
As I toss my milk caps into the recycling bin, I knew the next step for me was to fill in my knowledge gaps and actually learn about recycling laws in DC. After all, I know that I can’t be the only one who can’t recite the rules of recycling on command. After a quick Google search, I quickly learned that all commercial buildings (including residential apartments) are in fact required to recycle, and are subject to fines up to $1000 if they are note compliant. On the District’s government website all facts are listed out in a nice PDF document, with all required recycled items are clearly listed: all paper products, aluminum, steel, tin, brown, green and clear glass. But, get this, plastic food containers and bottles are recommended recycled product, but are still optional. This last point seems odd to me, as I feel that plastic bottles are some of the more common recycled products after paper products. It is also noted that all containers must be cleaned without waste: food, paint, or chemicals, etc before recycling. Yes, it specifically notes that pizza boxes are not recyclable due to the food residue.
Now that I have my facts straight, the next step here is to follow those guidelines. And, if I choose not to, well that’s where the fines come in—so perhaps the city will start enforcing those, and if people don’t start (looking at myself here!) following the rules, at least the city could make some cash off of our laziness and ignorance.
If you live in the DC area, check it out for yourself: http://dpw.dc.gov/DC/DPW/Services+on+Your+Block/Recycling.
No comments:
Post a Comment