The Recycling Conversation

So yesterday at lunch, we had a very interesting conversation about some idiots comments on the radio regarding recycling. He claims that recycling is worthless because instead of sending one, highly environmentally un-friendly truck to pick up our waste, they have to send two. Unfortunately, like Michael Moore, everyone has a forum to express their opinions no matter how un-educated it is. And even worse, there are people out there who don't know any better than to take their opinions as fact.
This gentleman on the radio insisted that it was far better to send all of our waste to the garbage dump because it doesn't take as much energy. Hmmm. Well. Ok. There are a couple of things wrong with this.
There is no doubt that trucks the city has are not up to environmental perfection. However, my point is... if everyone recycles and gets into the habit, then when they finally do locate the perfectly eco-friendly pick-up system, we won't have to change our lifestyles because we are already there.
I remember living in Boulder and they had very strict rules about waste. As a citizen of that particular city, it was your responsibility to recycle and if your garbage was found to have materials meant for the recycling bin, then you were fined. What a great idea!
I have just found out, sadly, that our county does not recycle any types of cardboard. Which is a shame. Well... back to lugging my cardboard to the recycling bin at work. One good thing we have found with recycling is that we can reduce our waste pick ups to once a week. We could do once every two weeks, but since it is hotter than hell here in the summer, chicken bones leave a very nasty smell around the bin... and as we all know, you can't compost chicken.