Recycling: Myth or Reality?
February 10th 2009 21:00
Photo by NekoJaNekoJa. Used in accordance with the terms of Wikimedia Commons’ GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
I once knew someone who believed recycling was a myth. This person was big on conspiracy theories so it didn’t surprise me when she told me recycling didn’t exist, that everything we carefully sort out gets mixed up together by the garbo and ends up in a landfill. This is why her empty cans of pet food go straight into the trash. (Me, being a tree hugger, would have recycled them. But then, you already knew that, didn’t you?)
When I asked her how she knew, she said “I just know”. I then pressed her for details. Did she know someone who worked for the council? Did a garbo tell her this? Again, she said she just knew. Not very convincing.
The same person also believes that a certain celebrity couple went to an orphanage and carefully selected a baby who looked just liked them because the male partner is actually gay and he married his wife as a cover-up. Again, when I asked her how she knew this, she said she just knew.
I am not a conspiracy theorist so it takes more than a theory – that has no evidence to back it up - or one person’s opinion to change my beliefs. Just because someone “knows” isn’t good enough for me. I want proof.
So far, the proof I’ve got supports the theory that recycling is actually happening. I see garbage collectors come and collect general trash, plastic and paper products separately. If recycling really was a myth, wouldn’t it be easier for the garbos to collect everything in one go? Wouldn’t it also make more sense for the council to provide one type of bin instead of several colour coded bins for each building? And why would the council encourage residents to sort out their garbage into recyclable and non-recyclable trash? “It’s to make people feel they’re doing something for the environment,” says the woman.
As for the celebrity couple, I asked her why the actress would bother going along with the gay-man-marries-a-woman-and-t hey-have-a-baby ruse. “To advance her career,” she said. “He is more famous than she is.” This would have been plausible if it wasn’t for the fact I have seen copies of the baby’s birth certificate on the internet. My all-knowing source said that’s because the couple forced a major hospital to come up with a dummy birth certificate. When I mentioned this would be unethical and I thought it would be highly unlikely that the medical profession would join in on their ruse, her answer was the couple were so powerful that they could easily pressure doctors into doing anything. Okay, then why hasn’t someone – say, a nurse or a receptionist - leaked this out to a gossip columnist? Because people are terrified of being sued by this couple. And on and on it goes. She has an answer for everything.
Ironically, this woman does recycle: she uses newspaper to wrap up her pets’ poo before sticking it in the bin.
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