confession

Despite everything of all this "living differently", of all this "consuming less" stuff, we've never successfully recycled long term.  That's the confession.

We only really tried one time, when we first moved up here and were so fresh, so idealistic.  We bought the bins.  They blew over and even when they didn't, they filled up with water.  Stinky water.  Then we couldn't find a place to even take the recyclables to.  That isn't to say there wasn't a place, or even places, but just that we couldn't find or happen upon anything that really met our needs.  It didn't take long to quit trying. We still did mostly cloth diapers during all those years in diapers, but we still did buy some paper diapers and I'll tell ya, I'd never be so holy again as to do cloth diapers when traveling as we did with our first.  Nope.  We mostly consume a lot less.  Period.  Of everything.  This is facilitated by poverty but honestly there isn't much we'd actually want.  Sure, if there were a windfall, a few things would change.  There wouldn't be any dirty kitchen towels anymore, there would be a pair of Muck boots for everyone, I wouldn't put off dental cleanings or worry about car repairs, I'd probably have all of us on the family plan at the chiropractor.  But the family motto of, "have less, be more" didn't come out of nowhere.  "Things" and having them are usually bandages over festering sores.

But now the kids are grown and we're basically adults living cooperatively.  And one of the kids said, "Why don't we recycle?"  And so we looked into it again and the county now has the recycle bins in a permanent place not far out of our way on our way to town and so now we do recycle.  Glass, plastic, cans, aluminum -- and also the disposable grocery bags go back to the grocery.