Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Taking out the Trash

A plain manila envelope arrived today, with no return address. The cancelled stamp did not reveal where the package came from, and the print looked only vaguely familiar. I opened the bag, soggy from rain, to find something soft and wrapped in a yellow bag. "Goody," I thought to myself, "My first piece of hate mail." I unwrapped the bag and pulled out. . . a hat. My granny sent me a pink and white winter hat her 90 year old self knit!

I read in today's Bangor Daily News that 40% of Mainers recycle, but that number had remained constant over the last few years. This means the state has plateaued on sorting their paper, plastics and glass? My little town has no services like trash pick-up or recycling, so I called a waste service company today to arrange for pickup. I asked about recycling too. The woman on the other end asked me how important it was to me, and I said very. She went on to say that they were very particular. Newsprint must be sorted from glossy paper and bundled. Glass must be clean with labels removed, and tin should be clean with labels removed and crushed. The only plastics accepted are #2. All these items must be in separate bags or containers, or they will be treated as trash. I found it ironic since either way, they will make money off of my trash.

And speaking of taking out the trash, I understand that Donald Rumsfeld is looking for a new job. Something comparable might be a Wal-Mart greeter. He's used to hegemonic institutions.

1 comment:

CBK said...

Oh yeah, I really like the new template/design, too!