I feel a rant coming on!  

The Bean and Budder spent last Thursday with their grandparents and my hubby and I had much needed time together after the hustle and bustle of the Christmas holiday.  We drove off in the pickup to do our weekly errands, a dump run and the bottle and can deposits.  This was my first time accompanying him to the dump - usually the Bean is his dump buddy.  Anyway, I was shocked and discouraged by what I saw.  Here I am thinking that our society has come a long way since the days we threw all of our garbage away.  I was under the impression that recycling is a fact of life and that it's something people just do.  But I was wrong!  The scene at the dump was a sad commentary on how little effort is made in our town to cut down on waste and to do something good for the planet.

The sad scene at our town dump --- notice all the recyclable cardboard and plastic.

Now, I am not saying we are the perfect recyclers in our household, things do slip by, like the jar of encrusted peanut butter that will take an hour to clean, or a magazine here and there.  But we try hard to recycle and teach our kids that it is the right thing to do.  That's what my parents taught me and it makes sense.  Sure, it takes extra effort, and yea, it is a pain in the butt, but each week my husband and kids dutifully get the recyclables ready to put them out at the end of the driveway.  We practice what we preach and hope our kids see the importance of caring for the planet and their future health and the health of many generations to come.

For the few moments we were there, others were unloading all sorts of items that should have been recycled.

So, it was discouraging to arrive at the dump and see all the recyclable plastic containers, cardboard, plastic bags and glass jars sitting in a heap in the garbage bin while all the recycling bins at the dump entrance were empty.  We spent weeks preparing for the holidays --- buying, wrapping, cooking, cleaning and assuring everything was ready.  Then when all was said and done many took the easy way out and chucked the remnants of the celebration in their garbage can without a thought about the outcome.  Well, here is the result of our celebration in plain sight.  It's disgusting, it's a huge waste and it's a disgrace! Come on people!  Shame on you for being lazy.  What message is this sending?

On a positive note, according to a Harris poll, 70% of people do recycle.  So, I guess things could have been worse and the garbage pile could have been bigger. But upon doing some research, I was surprised to learn that the number of people who recycle is slowly decreasing.  Back in the '80's 80% of people recycled.  And even more surprising is that the younger generation is mostly at fault.  Senior citizens do most of the recycling.

It's now a new year and we are formulating our New Year's resolutions.  Here's a great one --- in 2010 let us resolve to make more effort to recycle and teach our children to do so too.  It really does make a difference.  According to Treehugger.com, recycling materials can take as little as 5 percent of the energy you'd wind up expending if you produced them from virgin sources, as is the case with aluminum, which means you not only conserve already-limited resources, but you also curtail potential atmosphere-warming carbon emissions—95 percent, in some cases.

So get with the program and be part of the solution!  Learn how and where to  recycle at earth911.com

Ok, I feel much better now that I got that off my chest.