Yes. I’ve been gone a while. I took a sabbatical — what of it? I’m not getting paid for this. I’m back, and I’m going to quit being such a crabby scrooge about how bad everything is and be more informative about what we can do to help. Especially given that I’m the first one to head down to the party store to buy glittery things when there’s something to celebrate. I love colored foil. Love. And I don’t know what to do about it. Maybe I can make up for it by talking the entire world into recycling the recyclable.
New Tack: clearing up some of the confusion about recycling — such as: Why is the landfill actually not the worst fate in the world for certain stuff? Why can this go into your bin and not that? Where does it all go? Why is it not helpful to crumple your paper into little balls? Why is it no longer necessary to flatten your cans and take the labels off? What’s life like for the sorters at the materials recovery facilities? Why after decades of training us to sort, they now tell us to throw it all into the same bin? Why do we Oregonians separate out our glass while in California they don’t?
I know how you’ve been feeling — just like that guy in Rebel Without a Cause — and I’m going to fix it. Sister Kate will Explain it All to You. I’ll make it easy to understand, and entertaining at the same time. So go put on your playtime clothes and come back tomorrow. Or maybe the next day, at the very latest.
Kate, I just checked back to your site and read all the recycling posts from the past two months. I love them, thank you for writing these! I will share on my Facebook page.