Recycling Gold

Desperate for cash, our city left two gold recycling boxes on our front porch today in the hopes that we will ignore Russell Oliver's pleas for our used gold, and toss it all into the recycling boxes instead.

Okay. Not exactly.

The truth of the matter is, I am Recyclor. All shall bow down before me and my mighty recycling skills! Gasp! at the "good variety of newspapers and cartons" I recycled. Excite! to the fact that my blue boxes and green cart had "no contamination." Thrill! to "diverting more than the community's target of 65% of waste from landfill." Gasp once again! When I tell you it would have been even higher if the city hadn't tested our garbage the week after Halloween!

It began back in November when a city employee in a non-garbage truck type vehicle picked up our waste and sorted through it to see how well we were recycling (and maybe snatch a credit card number or two).

Turns out we were doing well enough to earn their coveted "Gold Recycling Box" award. There was much excitement in our house tonight as we celebrated our recycling accomplishments after discovering the "gold" award on our front porch. The two new gold-coloured boxes are meant to replace our blue bins. This action will infuse jealousy and anger into our neighbours, who will then attempt to one-up us, keeping-up-with-the-Jones's style.

With everyone competing to be the best recyclers in all the land, the city wins. Especially if people begin throwing their gold into the bins. It's a very sneaky plan masterminded by ex-big corp. CEOs, small-time Trump wannabe's, and perhaps old Russell himself.

The program requires a citizen to sign up their address and give the city permission to rifle through their garbage for a waste-study. About 2 years ago, I did just that but was unaware that there was an award associated with it.

I had long since forgotten about it, until one day in late October when I received a phone call from a city employee. The pleasant, yet slightly recyclable-sounding woman stated that they were collecting my waste for the study I'd signed up for. Her instructions were to leave our refuse out on a specific date that was not our usual pick-up date. I gathered our throw-outables in the kitchen for one last hurrah, then kicked them to the curb without so much as a hug.

Pulling in to the driveway two months later, I laughed as Suz questioned the bins with, "yellow recycling bins? What the heck does the city want us to recycle NOW?"

It took a moment to set in, and I exclaimed, "we must have won! It was that recycling thingamajigger!" My only worry (associated with this event) is now that my gold boxes are so prominent on the street, I will face extra pressure to keep my recycling prowess at the kingly levels I've achieved. "Recyclor challenge everyone to recycle their best!"