Saving the Earth?

Recycling, although a good thing in general, makes me sick! Once a week my husband sifts through the cans, bottles, glass and paper then sorts it all and hauls it to the curb. A big ole truck then comes by and takes it away to God -knows where to be processed and made into something useful. For this service we pay a fee to the city. Shouldn't the city be paying us? After all, we are saving the earth and the garbage load is lighter these days. Right? Supposedly the landfill (aka 'the dump") won't fill as fast as in the past. Whatever.

We diligently rinse all the cans and bottles. Isn't that wasting water? What about razors? I recently went to my local Walgreens to purchase razor blades for my favorite razor. The blades are no longer available, but the razor lives on in a disposable model. HUH? I now have a useless handle (razor stick?) which I suppose I should throw away. The disposable model comes three to a pack. Great, now I can litter -up the dump with dull razors with plastic sticks times three! What about those nasty little CD cases? We now download our CDS to an IPOD. So what is to be done with the CD and the case it came in? Prescription drugs are another sticky issue. Why do we not return the bottles to be re-filled? Some drug stores will do that. Cold water washing to save energy? Dog vomit and urine be damned; I am saving the earth by using cold water. Not.

Enough is enough. I have for years reused and recycled because doing so saved money. Recycling a pot roast into vegetable soup, using a towel more than once, washing margarine tubs, cutting open tooth paste tubes to get the last bit, scraping jars until they squeaked and driving cars until they begged for mercy was a way of life around our house. Recycling was the way I was raised. My parents lived through the Great Depression and WWII, so reusing and recycling were second nature to them. The do-gooders, organic hippie -types who push the save the earth button have nothing on our parents' generation.

Please don't ask me to drive an electric car to save the air and then demand I un-plug my pc to save electricity. It does seem counter-productive to me, or maybe I am the crazy one. Wash in cold water but remember to use hand sanitizing gel to kill germs. Even my new "Energy-Star" washing machine has a sanitize cycle! What's that about?

By the way, the earth saving, savvy husband of mine discovered that the local Humane Society uses newspapers to line the kennels, so he now loads them up and drives the newspapers to them. To me, that is recycling in the best way.