A Small Green Tragedy
Aug. 26th, 2008 11:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tabular_rasaSo WashU is supposed to be making particular efforts to be green and sustainable this year. (Lisa is very happy about it, lol). They've got washable silverware in the eateries instead of disposable; they're not selling disposable water bottles on campus and new students get a free water bottle (which, if used at the eateries, gets you discount on drinks); and everyone's gotten a magnet explaining little green tips like turning off the lights and the faucet when not in use, not using the hot wash cycle for laundry, taking shorter showers, and shutting down computers at night. We can recycle all plastics this year, too, which is new. I've always recycled where I could and such (and not just because I live with Lisa, lol)-- for the most part, I'm down with being green. Though I'm not excessive (ie: I am NOT going the Japan route and foregoing central heat. NEVER AGAIN), I try not to be grotesquely wasteful.
Anyway, I just went to take all our post move-in recycling to the trash room. Usually the trash room has about three trash cans, and then a recycling can for paper, and a recycling can for "comingle" (plastic, metal, glass). It's one of my chores in in the apartment to do recycling, so I take it down there and sort our bin into the two containers. However, when I get there, there's three trash cans, plus one unmarked recycling can and an unmarked small trash can. In the bottom of the bigger can is a lot of paper, so I start putting my paper in. However, when I look in the little trash can, it's just got a few random flyers in it-- so even if it was meant for comingle it's been contaminated.
The housekeeping lady happens to come in just then, so I take the opportunity to ask her if she knows which bin is for which. She can't figure it out, either, so she tells me pretty much to screw it and just throw it away. My roommates and I went through all the trouble to keep it sorted, and it's not like recycling starts to smell like trash does, so I'm like "I'll just keep it back at my room until we can get someone to mark the bins." The housekeeping lady does not like this. She tells me again to just throw it away, and as I'm walking out the door, she grabs the bin away from me and throws it all into the trash.
Kinda pissed.
Like, not only was that really weird and frankly quite rude on a personal level . . . it's obviously not environmentally sound. I think some US cities are actually creating legal sanctions for putting recycling into trash, but, as things now stand, mostly I'm just disappointed that though our apartment tried to do everything right, it didn't do any good.
Edit (11:52 am): Okay, so I just went back down-- after the housekeeping lady was gone-- with some homemade signs, put them up over the bins, resorted what was in the bins and what the lady had put in the trash. Gross. But that just pissed me off too much to deal with, I had to do something with that energy.
Anyway, I just went to take all our post move-in recycling to the trash room. Usually the trash room has about three trash cans, and then a recycling can for paper, and a recycling can for "comingle" (plastic, metal, glass). It's one of my chores in in the apartment to do recycling, so I take it down there and sort our bin into the two containers. However, when I get there, there's three trash cans, plus one unmarked recycling can and an unmarked small trash can. In the bottom of the bigger can is a lot of paper, so I start putting my paper in. However, when I look in the little trash can, it's just got a few random flyers in it-- so even if it was meant for comingle it's been contaminated.
The housekeeping lady happens to come in just then, so I take the opportunity to ask her if she knows which bin is for which. She can't figure it out, either, so she tells me pretty much to screw it and just throw it away. My roommates and I went through all the trouble to keep it sorted, and it's not like recycling starts to smell like trash does, so I'm like "I'll just keep it back at my room until we can get someone to mark the bins." The housekeeping lady does not like this. She tells me again to just throw it away, and as I'm walking out the door, she grabs the bin away from me and throws it all into the trash.
Kinda pissed.
Like, not only was that really weird and frankly quite rude on a personal level . . . it's obviously not environmentally sound. I think some US cities are actually creating legal sanctions for putting recycling into trash, but, as things now stand, mostly I'm just disappointed that though our apartment tried to do everything right, it didn't do any good.
Edit (11:52 am): Okay, so I just went back down-- after the housekeeping lady was gone-- with some homemade signs, put them up over the bins, resorted what was in the bins and what the lady had put in the trash. Gross. But that just pissed me off too much to deal with, I had to do something with that energy.
