Scrap

    This evening I helped my Dad strip down things for us to take to the scrap yard. I find it interesting to see how things such as washers, dryers, and ceiling lights breakdown into fairly basic materials. Most things that we find around our homes today breakdown into copper, steel, and other such materials.

    What i was thinks about as I did this was how a lot of people these days just throw a lot of things out with out even a second thought. Many do not even do as my Dad and I did and take things apart so you can get the money for the metal and such.
   Last year I had a house mate who was very big on on recycling. She was so dedicated to making sure that every that could be recycled was it drove me nuts a lot of that time. But, since she was willing to deal with it all, I put up with it. One day I was in my studying, as I often was. I preferred to keep to myself at home, mostly because on top of the recycling thing we were also in the same program so she really drove me nuts because I spent so much time with her.
       So there I was studying when my house mate knocks on my door and says she has been cleaning the kitchen and wants to know if she can throw out some stuff that the last tenets had left behind. She had found an old vacuum, a coffee maker, and a Crockpot. I took a look at them and said they looked fine. If they were not in the  way why not just leave them there in case the next people might like them. When we moved in we needed very little because so much had been left, why not keep it that way? She really did not like this idea. In fact she kind of twitched.
       She ended up throwing the stuff out, having it around bug her that much and I really did not care enough that I was willing to take time away from my studies to deal with it.

      To me that is a prime example of how things seem to be going with out culture today. Many people give face time to recycling, but only as far as it means that they put it out on the road for someone else to deal with. Now she or I could have taken to a second hand store, or I could have taken the time to take them apart for scrap. When push came to shove we did not. I was busy and she just wanted them gone.

        What I feel it all comes down to is that fact that if we really want to stop waste we need to be willing to deal with it. Often dealing with it means that we need to keep it until we can deal with it properly. How many of us are willing to do that when we can just as easily make it disappear by throwing it in a magic black bag that if we leave out on a certain night will be taken away. Like a child leaves a tooth for the tooth fairy. We are getting better. Mainly because many cities are now charging for garbage removal, but will take recycling for free.

Next time you buy something like a new coffee maker and are thinking what to do with the old one think to yourself can I really say i recycle and that I am a good person if I throw something out that really can be broken down into pieces and recycled?