The story... :)

Thanks, Michelle! So the story is, my condominium complex doesn't offer recycling services, but we do have a big dumpster to put our trash in. I started recycling earlier in the semester, and convinced the guys who live in the unit below me (also college students) to do it, too. We have to pack up our cars and drive it down the road to a recycling center every once in a while. Well, we'd collected a formidable collection of recyclables, which we were beginning to feel pretty proud of. As I told Michelle, last weekend there were some people renting the condo next door to mine, who were in town for the Notre Dame spring Blue/Gold football game. On Sunday morning I went outside to go for a run, and the renters were packing up and leaving, and the man said, "Excuse me, miss, I just wanted to tell you that we threw your trash away for you. You know, those boxes that were sitting there..." I couldn't believe it! What a moron! I did go get my makeshift recycling bin, full of stereotypical college-age recyclables, out of the dumpster, as they stood there and watched in disbelief.

I also found it quite interesting that they raided the boys' recycling bins as well. Amazingly enough, however, as the other pictures show, they seemed to realize that the newspapers were recyclable, so they left those, but they BAGGED and THREW AWAY all their other stuff (We got that out of the dumpster, too.) But can you believe it?! People we didn't even know! Renters for the weekend! I find it ironic that they clearly care enough about "garbage" to know that it looks distasteful, and want to keep the environment clean. And they didn't like the look of our trash out on our porches, to the point that they took it upon themselves to dispose of it. Yet when it comes to their recycling knowledge, out of all of our stuff, the only thing that they visually recognized as recyling was newspaper...even though all the rest of the stuff was tossed in the same boxes as the newspaper (quite disgusting too, i might add). So they went through it, stole all of our recycles, and threw them in the dumpster. Amazing. Anyway, proves my personal take-home message from Royte's book--the public NEEDS to be better educated. If they were, obviously the motivation is there to keep the environment clean...they just need to be better informed of their options.

p.s. that exam was soo hard!! eek! have a great summer, everyone!