It was difficult for me to walk around the Montgomery County Recycling facility and not feel a bit guilty.
I was there as a chaperone on Tikkanen’s 1st grade class trip and while the science, process, and automation weren’t fascinating, I was a bit dismayed by just how much STUFF this one facility on this one day in this one place during this 10 minute tour was processing.
It was mammoth.
I certainly wouldn’t be considered to be a person on the forefront of the Green movement, but my awareness, starting with An Inconvenient Truth, has certainly been raised recently.
I compost (or try to), am investigating solar for my roof. I’m pretty good and diligent about paper/plastic recycling.
Still, I saw all of this…all the one use drink bottles and felt pangs.
Pangs for the world that our kids could inherit.
Pangs for the disregard/lack of knowledge we’ve had in the past for the environment.
As I saw somewhere once, “we’re on a spaceship with finite resources on an infinite voyage…we can’t afford to waste things.”
I just wonder if more people would have the same reaction going through there as I did.
One thing you notice is the smell…and this isn’t garbage, it’s recycling.
I saw the people who work there…4 days per week, 10 hours a day, moving our cast away stuff to help our future planet.
They had my gratitude.
Definitely a worthwhile visit and a perspective changer.
Here’s a video of the process.