When I lived in Tampa, Fla., a relative who visited from New
York City would joke,
”
What’s the difference between Tampa and yogurt?
”
When I lived in Tampa, Fla., a relative who visited from New York City would joke, “What’s the difference between Tampa and yogurt?”
The answer was, “Yogurt has live culture.”
He was lamenting the absence of theater, opera, galleries, music performances, bookstores and the other attractions of a civilized life that Tampa actually did have, but not in the abundance and wealth found in New York.
By these criteria, we might say that Hollister falls closer to Tampa than yogurt on the live culture scale. We do have some great kids’ performances, the Oriana Chorale, a few galleries, but no bookstore and no opera.
However, we do have something far more vital that even advanced civilizations such as Sunnyvale and Palo Alto do not yet possess.
I am talking about one-receptacle curbside recycling.
I am not going to make the argument that a row of blue recycling bins lined up along the curb on collection morning is a kind of installation-piece sculpture.
I am not going to pretend that the sound of the wheeled carts is any kind of music.
And it would never occur to me to propose that the tons of discarded catalogs are a kind of desperate materialistic bookstore.
But having the ease of recycling by putting stuff into just one container, and then wheeling it to the curb once a week, is an important amenity that does indeed advance the quality of life not only for us today, but also for generations to come.
The reason is that when you can simply dump your wine bottles, junk mail, catalogs, corrugated cardboard, newspapers and clean plastic containers into just one bin, you are more likely to really do it.
Curbside recycling of any kind is a big improvement from the old days, when you had to save your recyclables and eventually lug them to a recycling center where you stood tossing one color of glass at a time over the top of a giant bin.
I have to admit it was fun to hear the smashing glass. But ultimately it was the errand at the bottom of the list.
With curbside recycling, if you have to sort stuff – separate glass from plastic from paper, for example – it still requires some thought, as well as requiring more room for the separate bins. Then you have to drag all three of the bins out to the curb.
It seems trivial but it’s enough extra work that it doesn’t always happen.
With our large blue tubs, we in Hollister have what I call “No-excuses recycling.”
It’s just as easy to manage as regular garbage and the list of what can be included is much longer than the list of what can’t. (To see both lists, go to www.san-benito.ca.us /departments/iwm/city_ of_hollister.htm.)
So with all the time and stress we save with one-container recycling, we can think of ways to bring more of the other kinds of culture to Hollister, if we want to.
Or at the very least we are leveling out the growth of the landfill, probably keeping some toxins out of the air or water, and setting up the expectation and habit of recycling with our children, a few small but important steps in saving the planet for the operas of the future.
