Where Does It Go?

Once upon a time, we threw all our "trash" into "trash cans"and a truck took it away so we never had to think of it again. My sister in Las Vegas tells me they can still drag any old thing to the curb, like sofas and broken refrigerators, to be hauled off as part of their service and buried in the desert. Don't try that in Seattle! I've heard that Seattle garbage is expensively trucked down I-5 and buried somewhere in Oregon, but the ultimate goal here is zero trash dumped in NW landfills.

This picture is the recycle/compost/trash rules that tell us what goes where, so the simple act of "taking out the trash" has become a fairly complicated process. It is illegal, for example, to throw compostables like vegetable peels into the trash can, or for that matter, down the garbage disposal. Kitchen waste, pizza boxes, chicken bones, paper towels, and all types of organic stuff goes into the "compost bin" along with the yard clippings. And now we throw our wine bottles, junk mail, cartons, plastic, etc. etc. together into the recycle bin. This is a work saver, since we used to have to separate the glass out, but now we throw everything in willy-nilly. Imagine the mess as the truck dumps these loads of paper and broken glass at the recycle facility? Recycling is big business here, and the size of these operations run by companies like Waste Management really boggles the mind.

But as Martha Stewart would tell us, this is "A GOOD thing." We've been surprised to see how little we actually throw away now. I admit we have a paper towel habit, but now that dirty paper goes in the compost bin too, our real garbage can is seldom full. John has a knack for following the exact "process" so he heads up the household trash police. He patrols the trash cans, where I might thoughtlessly throw something out, like a tissue. I've actually seem him put his toothpick into the compost, instead of the trash. Personally, I think this is a bit much! (But these are the type of people we want testing our airplanes ;-)