I've become a recycling nut

A few months ago Mike and I started recycling our plastics, paper board, glass, aluminum, etc. We'd already been recycling our newspapers, but a story I wrote last fall about recycling efforts in Northern Colorado(http://ncbr.datajoe.com/app/ecom/pub_article_details.php?id=84157) opened my eyes a bit. Actually, it rekindled my desire to do my part and recycle what I could.

I used to live in Greeley, Colo., where I'd drop off my recycling at a grimy little place out in the country. I hated going there -- the guys who ran it kind of gave me the creeps -- but I was committed to recycling. I'm not an environmentalist by any means -- I have my doubts that global warming is our fault and that we can really do that much to stop it -- but recycling just makes sense to me. I mean, why throw that plastic water bottle away when it could be recycled into another plastic bottle? Why let it sit in a landfill FOREVER when it doesn't have to? I lived in an apartment in Greeley and therefore didn't have a recycling pick-up service. I had to seek a place out on my own and then collect all my recyclable items in bags and store them until I took them in.

I've moved a couple of times since I lived in Greeley and pretty much forgot about recycling. Every once in a while I'd heft the trash out to the trash bin and think about all the stuff in there that could be recycled.

The story I did for the Northern Colorado Business Report last November motivated me to start recycling again. For one, I did some research about landfills. (For a brief introduction to landfills, go to http://www.howstuffworks.com/landfill.htm.) Landfills are basically big holes in the ground where our trash gets buried. Much of what we throw away never decomposes or biodegrades, and it stays in that hole forever. On the East Coast, recycling is actually cheaper than land filling. Why? Because the landfills are full. Yes, some East Coast trash companies are hauling their trash out West because there's simply more room out here to bury the trash. I also learned that some counties in Colorado are really on the ball about recycling and have county-sponsored programs, such as Larimer County and Boulder County. Others are comparatively light years behind, such as Weld County, where I used to live. Land filling in Weld County -- the third largest county in the state that has a lot of wide open space -- is big business. Therefore recycling isn't very valued.

That brings me to Douglas County, where Mike and I currently live. Since we live in a condominium complex, there is no recycling pick-up. (That's a whole other can of worms I opened when doing research for the story. Apartment and condo complexes are hard to crack in terms of organizing recycling efforts. What happens is recycling bins get set up; residents ignore the signs that say "Recycling Only" and dump trash in there, and then the trash haulers, which are also the recycling companies, get fed up having to separate the trash from the recyclables. Therefore the recycling bins go away, and residents who want to recycle have to find other means to do the right thing.)

But I digress . . . anyway, doing the story turned me into a bit of a recycling nut. Mike is into it, too. Before we throw anything away we ask ourselves if it can be recycled. A few weeks after we started collecting our recyclables, I happened upon a few recycling bins behind a Catholic church. For six months, our little system worked perfectly. We collected the recyclables and would take them over to the bins behind the church every few weeks. Then one day a few weeks ago, we went to the church, and the recycling bins were gone!

There was a sign that said, "Recycling bins must be removed by order of the Douglas County Development Department." I was really mad. REALLY mad. I mean, here we are, two average citizens trying to do our part to help the environment, and the government says NO. I'm not sure what happened with the bins -- whether a neighbor complained, whether the recycling company didn't pick up the stuff often enough or what.

I was mad enough to want to abandon our recycling efforts entirely. But something held me back. I did some research on the Internet and found that there aren't many places you can drop off recyclable items in our area. Sure, if we lived in a house we could pay the trash company to pick recycling up. We could drive 20 miles to Commerce City to a drop-off center. There are plenty of places to take phone books, car batteries, electronics or appliances. But I wanted a place to take everyday stuff.

Today, I found it. And it made my day. Seriously. The El Jebel Shriners have set up recycling bins at various locations across the Denver area, and I found one in an elementary-school parking lot close to home. While I dumped our stuff in there, I half expected someone from the school to come out and tell me I couldn't use the bins. But no one stopped me.

I sure hope this new recycling location turns out to be a good one. I hope the bins don't disappear on us. In the meantime, I think I'm going to call Douglas County -- heck, I may even try to find out who my county commissioner is and call him or her-- and encourage them to start a county-wide recycling drop-off center. For heaven's sake, recycling isn't a new concept. It's the norm on the East and West coasts, and many universities across the country, including ones in Colorado, have campus-wide recycling programs.

To me, it's the biggest no-brainer thing you can do to reduce waste and help the environment, minor though it may seem to the individuals doing it.