Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Recycling Day

I don't take out the recycling very often. It may seem like a small thing, but it's an Odyssian journey. It means maneuvering a 30-gallon plastic garbage can full of paper onto a handtruck and rolling it clear to the other end of the building where the freight elevator is, where I fumble around with keys for a while before getting it loaded. Then, because there an no riders allowed on the freight elevator, I walk up the smelly back stairway (hunting for light switches, fumbling again for keys) and meet the freight elevator on the loading dock. From there, it's a two block walk, outside in the freezing rain, to the main entrance of the building, where the recycling containers are, and where, if I'm lucky, the recycling containers aren't already stuffed full.

So it's something I only do every couple months or so, which is probably good. It forces me to be very stingy about what I recycle. Forces me to reuse as much as I possibly can. Or so I tell myself, but who am I kidding? All it really enforces is a slovenly mess. There comes a point at which even I can't stand the squalor, can't keep wading through the paper scraps, and I take the recycling out. Today was one of those days. It's a good feeling. I ought to do it more often. And I probably won't.

It's one of those chores that it's hard to find time for. What I need is a printer's devil. Someone to put away the furniture, and oil the presses, and sweep the floors, and take out the recycling. Wouldn't that be nice?