Saving the Earth

Today is a red letter day in my book, because yesterday I got my new driver's license. Now that I am officially a Kaufman County resident, I can use the county's recycling center. I cannot tell you how excited I am.

Before I moved to Texas, recycling was sort of my hobby. My garage in Boulder was full of bins of different sizes and shapes. Every day I sorted junk mail, newspapers, milk cartons, cardboard boxes, cans and glass into the various bins, and every Saturday the whole family went to Eco-Cycle to further sort our trash for recycling. It was a family event.

The boys remember how much they enjoyed taking the bins of different types to the correct dumpsters. They remember how they used to throw the beer bottles into the glass bin, and how it was okay if they broke. That was fun.

I doubt I'll get the kids too excited about going with me to the local recycling center, although from what I can see from the road, it looks about the same as the one in Boulder.

But I will go. I can't wait to take the 24 plus soda cans and the four or five gallon jugs and the occasional wine bottle or beer cans to recycling. It took me a long time to get used to throwing those things away, but where we used to live here at the lake, we didn't have any other option.

Now we are back to saving the earth. It's a good feeling. This weekend I'll get my bins all organized and begin the process. Re-training the kids to save rather than discard their trash will take a little time, but not much. I know they appreciate the point.

After all, as Jerry Garcia once sang, "We don't own this world like we act as if we did, it belongs to the children of our children's kids."

It's good to keep that in mind. I'm so glad I can get back to doing the right thing.