O comes to me this morning all business just as I am getting comfortable on the couch sipping my morning coffee, “Mom, I want to change the chore I am responsible for.”
“What do you mean honey?” I ask her surprised. “Taking out recycling is the easiest chore around. Besides, its only 8 AM and you are up early on a weekend, are you feeling alright?” I touch her forehead, all concern.
She brushes my hand aside looking miserable, as if she has the weight of the world on her shoulder.
“Mom, our recycling is like a never ending saga, it is so hard. The moment I take my bin out to the recycling can, you are filling it up with the next lot. I have to do it atleast two, sometimes three runs a week!”
“Yes, well honey we get on average 150 pieces of mail every week and 99% of it is junk. I think it is our moral responsibility to recycle rather than just throw it in the trash. Think of all the poor trees that had to die so that we could have all that marketing material reminding us to replace our windows or clean our teeth. More so the packaging material in our groceries is insane! We need to make sure we do our bit to reduce the waste that makes it to the landfill.”
“But I am responsible for three (three!!!!) bins. Her eyes wide as saucers. N gets to take care of only trash can.”
“Well honey” I take a deep sigh. This is a bit insane even for me. Why does our county make it so hard to recycle?
“The plastic bags mess up the machines at the recycling and sorting facility and so we have to recycle those at the grocery store. The recycling company will not pick it up with all the usual stuff. The last I checked, you leave that for mom to finish off once you’ve bagged them together. They kind of just hang out in the bin waiting to be moved.”
“Well yes, I never know where to put them.”
“In the garage honey, like we’ve been doing it for the last couple of years, till we can take it to the local grocery store.”
O looks at me sheepishly.
“Well, it is yet a lot of work bagging them.”
“Trust me, it is a lot more work nagging you to bag them honey.” I mutter under my breath looking into my coffee.
“And the third bin is the hardest.”
“Is it?” I look at her bemused.
“Why is that?”
“Well, all the bottles have to be separated, cleaned and binned separately so that they can be taken to the dump.”
“Do you know that all our recycling material has to be cleaned? Even the one that you take down the driveway.” I answer.
“Really, who cleans them?” She asks.
“The fairies” I feel like telling her. However, I just stare at her.
“Even when you kids put dirty takeout boxes in the recycling bin I fish them out and clean them. Else, all the recycling gets trashed” I finally answer.
“It must be really hard work loading all those bottles into the car and driving them to the glass recycling box huh.” I comment. "Stumbling under the load of those heavy bins, being careful not to let one slip, else you will have a bigger mess to clean."
“Well, you know I can’t drive mom.” She states all too knowingly.
“I know, honey much to my dismay.” I respond taking another sip of my coffee.
“Well maybe recycling isn’t all that bad after all.” She mutters after she’s had a few seconds to think about it.
“Are you sure? We can always switch chores around.” I state. "You can be incharge of the stinky trash and cleaning the trash bin weekly."
“I think I hear N calling me.” And she scampers off as quickly as her legs could carry her.
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