Not the "recycling." Not the stuff we put in those recycling bins that are green, but are supposed to be blue, and tell ourselves gets recycled after WastePro drops it off somewhere or other.
I'm talking about stuff that really will get recycled. I think.
This coming Saturday and Sunday, April 24 and 25, the BP Foundation is sponsoring a recycling event. It will be at the recreation center, and the focus will be "electronics." You can pack up your old computer tower/CPU, printers, laptops and tablets, your collection of old mobile phones from companies and contracts you haven't had in years, batteries, VCRs and DVD players (if you don't actually watch those old video cassettes, give them to Goodwill, and recycle the players, and I'm talking about the DVD player you replaced, because it doesn't work, not the one that does work: keep that one), cords that go to something or other you can't remember, and you don't have that appliance any more, even if you could remember, the hard drive from your old CPU, but you kept it, so you could transfer the contents to your new CPU, which you did, but now you have the old hard drive lying around, and any other stuff like that that's lying around, looking unsightly, and clogging up your living space.
You think you're still hanging on to that stuff for what reason? Come on, it's over. You've moved on.
And do you know what Thursday, April 22, 2021, is? Earth Day! Get in the spirit. If you're pretty sure they don't really recycle the stuff you put in the green bin that's supposed to be blue, and you're faintly skeptical about what will happen to the electronics you put in the containers at the recreation center, just superimpose your best optimism. And be glad that crap will be out of your house. You have enough other stuff, and you actually use some of it.
The containers will be dropped off some time on Friday, and they'll be retrieved some time on Monday. You don't need an attendant, or someone to sort this stuff for you. You can come any time of the day Saturday or Sunday, and just dump it off yourself. You'll feel better after you clear it out.
(If you were going to auction it on eBay for a lot of money, you would have done that a long time ago. Really, it's just clutter. I promise.)
GOOD STUFF! Thanks for letting us know. Will the village be sending out an eblast? Will it be posted on Nextdoor?
ReplyDeleteWill. Facebook, too.
DeleteI'm visiting my daughter and that part of my family in Massachusetts right now. She's so devoted to recycling. (You remember I told you about the town dump.) I've gently approached the matter with her, but she's made it clear she wants to continue to tell herself this taking recycling to the town dump is about something. I can't tell her she's kidding herself in general, and I can't even bring myself to tell her that the pizza boxes and other things, with food residue in them, are completely out of the question.
ReplyDeleteBut we might have a better chance with the electronics. Unless they and their toxic components just get dumped on some people in a third world country (which we're trying desperately to tell ourselves we're not), and poison their environment. If I thought there was a pretty good chance of that, I wouldn't advise you to take your useless electronics to the recreation center this weekend.
Oh, now I understand your line of thinking. Some of this stuff is still functional, maybe unused, and you're thinking that it would be a shame to lose it. Maybe it will be destroyed.
ReplyDeleteBut no! It's not the trash. It's recycling. If you can suspend your suspicion that maybe it won't really be recycled, it's going to be repackaged, refurbished, or something, and someone else will be able to use it. This is good, no?
Look at it this way. If your suspicion is right, and it really isn't going to be recycled, and you take it to the "recycling," then it will be destroyed, and no one gets to have a chance to use it. If your suspicion is wrong, and it really would be recycled, but you keep it to yourself, and do nothing with it, then no one gets to have a chance to use it. No one uses it either way. And it sits in your living space, of which you don't have enough, because there's too much junk, like these old electronics you don't use, lying around.
So I'm thinking you don't really have any choice here. I'm thinking you really have to let this stuff go.