1 You can't be bothered to separate your garbage
2 You don't have a recycling pick-up service in your area
3 You don't think that you generate enough recycling to drop it off yourselves at the local recycling depot
4 If it goes in your dustbin / garbage bin it's "out of sight, and out of mind"
5 The amount of recycling you / your family produces isn't going to make any difference
6 Landfills have been created to hold your all garbage...
...you may just want to change your mindset. Especially if you have small children. Even if you don't care about this planet. Even if you think you can't make a difference.
Because, if you feed your children any type of seafood, you may actually be inadvertently contributing to poisoning them. Fresh fish for battering and frying, or grilling, or making into a fish soup or stew or fish cakes, ready-made frozen fish fingers, crumbed / battered / in a ready made sauce (loaded with additives, but I won't go into that now). tinned sardines, pilchards, tuna. Any which way you buy / prepare or eat fish.
Click on this link, and find out why you should, perhaps, change your ways. For continued life on this planet depends on the effort that each and every one of us makes. It's no longer only the habit and responsibility of the greenies. The odd-one's who live next door. The eco-minded souls who are trying to do their bit.
It is NOW the responsibility of each and every inhabitant of this planet who purchases any goods from their local store / chain / fast food outlet where those goods are purchased in recyclable packaging.
It's not difficult to separate your recycling from the garbage. Seriously, it's not.
I have two stainless steel bowls on my kitchen counter top, next to my sink.
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| On the right is the compost scraps bowl, and on the right is my recycling bowl |
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| The recycling bowl gets emptied into these bags |
If you haven't recycled before, do you want to change your mind now?
Knowing that you could be poisoning yourselves and your children?
What is the point of growing your own chemical free fruit and vegetables, or rearing your own chickens / goats / pigs / cows and producing your own milk, butter, cheese and yoghurt, and baking your own bread, in order to avoid the chemical additives of shop bought produce, if, ultimately you are doing more damage to your families by feeding them (poisoned) fish. And what of the effects the polluted waters in our oceans are having upon the vast diversity of inhabitants therein. Disrupting that precious cycle could be the end of this world as we see / live / experience it today.
It's not too late to change. Go on - organize a recycling bucket or two, and fill, and empty, it responsibly every week. Be an example to your children and teach them the way forward. They won't know if you don't show them. And let them be a part of it - there's no reason why they shouldn't participate in taking the kitchen container to the recycling bin in your back yard / garage every day.
I never understood why people made such a fuss about recycling--it's so easy. Good post, Dani!
ReplyDeleteThanks Sue. No, I don't understand it either, unless it's just that they are stuck in their ways, and resist change.
DeleteMakes me feel old to say this but I've been recycling for 25 years at least and yes, it's easy. But surely everyone is already doing it?
ReplyDeleteLinda - LOL. Surely everyone is, or should be... I wonder if those that don't will be honest enough to leave a comment?
DeleteWe've had recycling available here for the past 10 years - drop off at a local collection point, which created jobs (and income) for a number of underprivileged people. Then our suburb was chosen as a pilot project, and a local company collects once a week - as long as it's put out on the pavement. The pilot project has been so successful that they are now including more suburbs in the greater Cape Town area.
Dani, we also have that project on this side of the Peninsula. We just bung it all into a bag which is renewed at collection time, once a week, from outside our gate. We can also dump anything at the Kommetjie waste site. Unemployed people are employed there to post items like paper, tins, into relevant giant container which gets sent to/collected by the relevant re-manufacturer when it is full. At this site, people can purchase any throwaways which they think usable ...old furniture, buckets, books...I bought 30+ old plastic plant pots for R20. We dump garden refuse there when we do a big pruning session and they machine-chip it all and sell it back as mulch!
ReplyDeleteLinda - Yes, same at our waste site in Hout Bay :) Good deal on the plastic pots!
DeleteOur neighborhood in the city is on an awesome pilot program. We have ONE large green recycling bin and we can dump all recyclables in it...glass, metal, paper, it all goes into one container and we don't have to sort and separate (though we've always done it anyway). It's pretty neat. They have machines at the recycling center that sort it all out. Pretty neat and the best part is on our end of the street, I always saw maybe 2 or 3 of us that put out our three small bins (glass/metal/paper) and now EVERY neighbor has their large green bins out. I think if more cities moved to this to make it so easy, it would help push those that (wrongly) think it's too hard.
ReplyDeleteLove this post, thanks for reminding people!
1st Man - Yeah - town municipalities have to lead the way. I reckon that it's such an important issue that it should be written into the constitutions of countries. :)
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