Waste
I live on top of a hill—a rather large one—overlooking the Ohio River. We often have high winds, and as a result, I and my neighbors end up with a fair bit of trash in our yards. You see, our community is fortunate enough to have single stream recycling, so we can recycle just about anything. I put a lot more out to be collected for recycling than for landfill. As such, I have a full-size trash can that I’ve taped a big recycling symbol to. Unfortunately, most of my neighbors use the standard bins. They’re small, so they’re often overflowing, and they don’t have lids. You can imagine, then, all of the milk jugs, pop bottles, and sundry plastic containers and sheets of cardboard that end up being blown all over the neighborhood. My customized trash can isn’t perfect, either. It blows over fairly easily, and if the recycling symbol isn’t immediately visible, the trash collectors dump it in the truck, negating the week’s worth of effort my family put into keeping the recyclables separate. What a waste!
Our borough should really be making available larger containers with lids. It’s a simple solution to all three problems: insufficient volume, wind-blown litter, and misidentification.
