RECYCLABLES

7:22 AM: I hear the truck empty the blue recyclable bins into its divided compartments and wonder if the driver notices there is less to empty this week. My previously substantial contribution to the "Aluminum / Plastic Only" is MIA.

A quick tally of my consumption provides the following results:

8 Budweiser tallboys x 5 nights per week =
40 cans (crushed once in the middle)
5 gallons, or
6,000 calories
$35 per week

x1 month=
160 cans (crushed once in the middle)
20 gallons, or
24,000 calories
$140 per month

x6 months=
960 cans (crushed once in the middle)
120 gallons, or
144,000 calories
$840 every 6 months

One beautiful day last spring, I had just cracked open my first beer and was peering into the parking lot through the branches of the huge pine tree that spreads across my living room window when I saw an obese senior-aged Caucasian female digging thru the recycle bins.

I watched, horrified and fascinated, as she withdrew each of my neatly-tied 7-11 bags filled with dead soldiers (crushed once in the middle), ripped them open, emptied the contents on the ground and proceeded to stomp each can into eternal flatness with the heel of her foot.

I wondered what she was thinking. And then I realized that I cared. Not so much what she thought, but what my neighbors must think.

I started collecting the nightly beer can bags, putting them all into a single, white garbage bag and throwing it away at night when I thought nobody was watching.