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!"

Dinner & Stupidity

"We have cell phones." I said, greeting the girl behind the counter. The naïve and confused Pizza Pizza employee asked, "for… me?" in such a naïve and confused way that I almost laughed.

"No." I pointed to the sign on the counter, "for the cell phone recycling program you have. You know, cell phones in exchange for pizza?"

She looked even more confused. Was I playing on her gullibility? Perhaps she was shocked that a random customer knew more about their promotions than she did. She leaned back and moved her eyeballs over to the slick sign I was talking about. She didn’t know what to say, and ran off to get her manager. I noticed that she ran like a girl.

When the manager came around the corner he held his hand out and smiled. We handed him our cell phones and charger, and he explained to the girl that we each got a free slice of pizza.

I felt great. Not only were we helping the environment by driving our Insight to the restauraunt but we were also recycling our old NiMh batteries and cell phones. On top of that, Pizza Pizza makes a donation to some environmental thingy. Who wouldn’t feel good about free pizza & less junk in their kitchen drawers?

We sat in the restaurant, eating our free pizza and smiling. When we finished, we stood up with our cardboard pizza trays and looked for the recycling. We looked and looked, but found nothing.

No recycling for paper, no recycling for cardboard, no recycling for bottles, no recycling for cans. Nothing.

How hard can it possibly be to recycle cardboard at a business that has cardboard as its primary garbage type? It blew our minds that Pizza Pizza can recycle cell phones, but not paper products. How backwards is that? So we folded our cardboard trays, took them home and placed them into our own BLUE BIN, which every household in our city has.

Computers Get The Boot

So, I gave my two old computers the boot. But not just any boot. No, these nearly-obsolete pieces of once fine equipment were not sent to the curb, not picked up by Joey Joe-Joe Jr. Shabadu, and will not find themselves slowly rusting in some municipal dump. Nope, I gave them a very special boot into the world of recycling.

Recycling computers is awesome. It saves the world from, well, a great big pile of trashed computers. It also creates a large range of jobs which Canada so desperately needs.

Except Alberta. Rotten, filthy stinking rich Alberta…

*Ahem* Anyway, it reminds me of something Suz taught me. Now, I’m the kind of guy who can’t fall asleep if I so much as accidentally drop some garbage on the ground – and leave it there. But, to help me feel better about it, Suz taught me what her friend taught her. It’s a line which holds a lot of meaning if someone challenges your decision to drop trash in a public place. A simple reply is all that’s required: "I’m keepin’ jobs in Canada."

And it’s totally true. If crusty people didn’t litter, then the prisoners who clean it up wouldn’t have jobs. And if big tattooed muscley dudes with a penchant for stabbing can’t focus on holding down a prison "job", then how can our system rehabilitate their bent minds?

Yep, garbage is good. If it weren’t for garbage, I think the overcrowded prisons would be more… uh… overcrowded.

Nevermind.