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Since I mentioned recycling, and since my laundry room (where I keep my recyclables) is about as clean as it’s going to get (for the picture), I decided to go ahead and write about it.

Recycling has cut our trash in half. Yes, that’s right – HALF. We have trash pick up once a week, but John only has to take it out once every other week now. This makes me feel ashamed at all the milk bottles, laundry soap containers, water bottles, glass peanut butter and mayonnaise jars, metal soup cans, and oodles and oodles of paper and cardboard that is now sitting in a landfill somewhere because for 23 years of my adult life (that’s not counting when I lived at home with my parents) I was too lazy to recycle it.

My first big attempt at recycling was a couple of years ago. I gave it up because it seemed to messy, but started it up again about six months ago. I now have two kitty litter containers on my dryer which hold paper, cardboard and metal and a laundry hamper full of plastics. They sort of clutter up my very tiny laundry / utility room, but it’s worth it.

Why I recycle:

– It’s fun. The good feeling factor is huge.

– Like my mother, I’m incapable of throwing away glass. It’s too pretty. And I don’t have the counter space to keep them all.

– You always have a spare jar or plastic jug on hand when you need one.

– It makes sense. Why throw away something that can easily be used again?

–It’s responsible. If I’m not mistaken it’s pretty standard in other countries. Maybe the U.S. is just too young to realize the eventual consequences of our laziness.

– I do not know how long it will be before God says “Enough!” and brings this world to an end. In case he waits awhile, I don’t want to leave my trash lying around for the next generation.