Just like there is value in doing ten push-ups after eating two honey glazed hams.
While I jest, I do genuinely believe there is some importance to the act of recycling. This importance is obvious to me, as reusing things is inherently less wasteful than using them once, or at least that is what I have been lead to believe since my cognitive function developed beyond simply demanding food with the threat of tears. (That stopped a couple of months ago.)
Despite the obvious importance of recycling, some people just don't seem to get it.
The reason for this lack of cooperation is something that has troubled me for quite some time. In the year I spent at school in Southern California, I must've heard twenty different people ask what the blue bins next to the trash were.
And, according to the overwhelming consensus, they were merely colorful trash receptacles, doubtlessly placed as a scientific experiment to see if Angelinos would still recognize a trash can despite it being marked with a bizzarre alien symbol:
It turns out they could, as recycling bins were used for everything short of mafia victim disposal.
The solution that I have come up with is that recycling is far too complicated for the average human. The recent simplification of many recycling programs is a great step forward. I remember when I first went home to Portland after the delivery of these fancy new recycling containers, and I was shocked when my mom told me that I didn't have to sort the recycling into 19 different categories. The good kind of shocked.
The new recycling bins are actually bigger than the trash cans, which is nice to see after years of tiny little recycling receptacles. I also happen to believe that this may be a brilliant play at subliminally tapping into the greater unconscious of humankind. But that's just me. I love a good conspiracy theory.
And to close off my rant, I direct my full fury at the dredge of civilization.
No, not Los Angeles. But I like where your head is at.
I mean of course drunken college students who take a few beers for the road and then find it quaint to leave the empties on some lucky individual's lawn. I understand that Eugene has a flourishing crackhead community that scours the front steps of frat houses for free 5 cent deposits, so leaving empty cans and bottles lying around seems like no biggie.
But what are you going to do when you move to a city where the crackheads don't roam the streets cleaning up after you? What are you going to do when they're living in mansions in the hills high above you? Or playing on your local NBA team?
You're just going to be littering, that's what.
BOOM. Knowledge bomb.
-1 For all the hating on California in this post. It's mostly just directed at Los Angeles, a place which has earned nothing but my utter distaste. Why? Because they have the L*kers, and the L*kers are the Devil's Team.
Seriously though, let's get into this. How am I supposed to respect a city that has perpetually shunned the ever-lovable rapscallion Clippers? How could you possibly call yourself a decent human being if you lived in LA and didn't root for the Clippers? Is it not human nature to root for the underdog? Is it not a sign of humanity to challenge adversity, rather than simply doing what is easy?
Unfortunately, that is exactly what the city of Los Angeles does, it takes the easy way out; cherishing its beloved L*kers, selling out every one of their games because they represent instant, easy, effortless success.
I honestly do not understand how anyone born after 1984 can root for the L*kers and consider themselves in possession of a soul.
+1 For a Chris "Birdman" Andersen-is-a-crackhead joke. (Sorry if anyone likes the Nuggets)
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