Over the weekend I participated in a community yard sale. We all had a great time selling our wares. But at the end, when I was packing up, deciding what to keep and what to donate, another woman who participated in the sale was bundling up all these nice clothes that didn’t sale. As she was doing that, I overheard her say to another that she was headed to the dumpster – yes, you read that right – DUMPSTER! Needless to say, I was horrified and immediately asked her permission to take the clothing to the Goodwill for her. But what I realized was that not everyone thinks like we do as I cannot imagine tossing any wearable clothing in the trash! It just drives home the consumer-driven, disposable society we live in. Individuals buy, buy, buy with no thought to whether they really need the item or not and when they are done with it, throw it away without a second thought. My point here is that we need to talk to others and spread the message of all of us doing our parts. It’s easy and oh so important. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!! No one should ever think that throwing usable clothing in the trash is a viable option!!!!

We received a letter yesterday from the folks handling Charlotte recycling and it appears that they will NOT be recycling juice boxes, milk and juice cartons – or any wax based paper products. This is disappointing and it contradicts Terri’s comments from last week about what would be recycled.

Do any of you know if caps still need to be removed from bottles?

The city’s new green recycling can on wheels also contains a Radio Frequency Identification Chip to help manage the inventory and focus recycling education where it is most needed.
I personally don’t mind. Perhaps it will entice more people to recycle.