Recycling

Those of you who know me even a little know that I am big on recycling. At my old job, I would dig aluminum and plastic out of the little trash cans and either take them home or put them in an appropriate bin at work. I would constantly remind my co-workers not to throw away their cans. I brought a box to work so we could all recycle newspaper.
I'm not as big of a recycling guru as my mom (she recycles EVERYTHING! Every scrap of paper, plastic or metal) but if she lived here in Denver, her life would be a lot easier. Recycling is HUGE here. All you have to do is have a designated bin and if something has a recycling symbol on it, you put it in the bin and they take it away and recycle it. You don't even have to SORT anything. I remember spending hours doing that in my youthful days.
At my new job, there are recycling bins for everything. Batteries, cardboard, paper, you name it. I AM IN HEAVEN! I never knew before what to do with #3, 4 and 5 plastics. Not many places take them. Or the little plastic wrappers that new appliances, dishes, etc. come in. I always just threw them away before. Now it's as easy as throwing it all in a bin and being done with it.
One of my KU professors once dumped out a trash can in the middle of the classroom and sorted out everything in it that was trash and recyclables. Almost everything except for food waste went into the recycle pile. And food waste can be composted. So what if every town and every city had a recycling program like Denver's? Our problems with overfilled landfills would go away and we'd stop using up so much of the earth's natural resources. I love living somewhere where everyone is so aware of these problems and eager to do something about it. In fact, the first thing our back yard neighbor told me was "recycle day is Monday!"
Okay, obviously I'm impressed by the "green-ness" of the city and I've said enough. I'll try to get Matt to post something here so that it's not always my rambling thoughts. I know you all want to hear from him too.

P.S. Thanks for all the encouragement with this blog. I really enjoy keeping everyone posted on what's going on and my likes/dislikes about things here. It really is a different lifestyle and a wonderful experience for us. I do find myself really missing Kansas and everyone there. Change is hard!