Rethinking Recycling

   It felt good to see my boys throw the Christmas tree into the pickup and take it to be recycled into wood chips. I wish I could say the same for the ton of trash at the curb.
   At one time I'd have used it all. When I was a kindergarten teacher, not a scrap would've been wasted. My kids and I converted cardboard boxes into pyramids and castles. Blue plastic Wal-Mart bags became rivers and moats. Packing materials served as skeletons for all kinds of creatures. The kids glued gold wrapping paper "sunshines" onto little landscapes or rolled and folded it into jewelry. Tissue paper came back as azaleas and dogwood petals in the spring. Wrapping paper tubes became telescopes, totem poles and giraffe legs. 
   I stared at all those tubes poking out over the top and thought even if they aren't recycled into something significant, I wish I could at least give them to some poor gerbil who'd love to chew them to shreds.
   All modesty aside, I must admit that I've done my part for recycling and have even been recognized for my efforts. While working in the schools or with scouts, I received many awards, usually the gag variety, but at least people noticed. And maybe the most flattering gesture of all-though I didn't think so at the time-was at Georgia State's childcare center where my pre-schoolers constructed a scale model of Atlanta. I'd scrubbed and sterilized eight Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream containers so my kids could turn them into the Peachtree Plaza. After painting it, they drew the windows with straightedges and proudly displayed it on our duct tape Peachtree Street. It was so beautiful that someone stole it. 
   But it just encouraged me all the more. If I'm that good at it, then I should recycle whatever and whenever I can. But maybe being good isn't necessarily reason enough.
   In 1991 when the Braves played in the World Series, I was subbing in a special education class at Lilburn Middle. I don't remember the term used at the time, but when I majored in special education in the 60's, these kids would have been called trainable. They could read only a few sight words. 
   Custodians delivered new tables that day. As they collected the flat boxes, I asked if I could keep them. I turned them into giant tomahawks for the kids to color and explained that we were recycling them.
   One kid furrowed his brows and asked, "What difference does it make if we just throw it away or turn it into a tomahawk first, then throw it away. It takes up the same space in the dump."
   Well, yes, if it makes it to the dump. Like my castles, pyramids and most of downtown Atlanta did. But if you're really good at it, you can spare the world of rubbish an entire Peachtree Plaza.

010804

Archive