Recycling

I don’t know… Which country is the best for environmental protection?

I lived in Malaysia many years and I remember around the ‘70s when I was a kid, a few Indian-Malaysians came around to houses to buy glass bottles or tins. At that time, my family always collected food or sauce bottles and waited until the guy came to buy them. I was always wondering: how much money will we get from them? The Indian guy would select those bottles he wanted (some might be rejected by him) then he calculated, and he took RM0.20 (sometimes RM0.30 or RM0.50 depending on the quantity and sizes of bottles) out from his pocket to make a deal. Though it was only sold for a little money, it was still not bad, as the trash could become money at that moment. Gradually, some would also come to buy old newspapers and cartons. Then gradually, some started recycling soft drink cans and plastic bottles. The trash did not have recyclable things because of those who glean and collect scraps, or the trash company’s staff would collect them and change to money. I think they wanted to get a little extra income, but there is nothing to be said against that! In fact, I praised their effort. I used to collect those recyclable things and gave to them. I don’t care how many people really are doing it for environmental protection, as long as they’re recycling.

After I came here and I saw Steve put old newspapers, cartons, bottles and others all together in the trash bag. I thought they were ‘wasted’. I want to continue my habit, so I collected them in individual bags. However, Steve always said to me, he doesn’t know where the place is to take them to recycle! He wants to live easy and doesn’t want to collect those recyclable things, and hasn’t taken the time to find out where the recycling place is. Now, I am like the role of his conscience, always urging him to find the place. The US is a big country and I hope people here will recycle as part of their everyday life.