[speaker001:] okay we we can uh be recorded while we talk about it
[speaker002:] okay well is your does your city have mandatory recycling uh recycling
[speaker001:] no we don't have mandatory we actually we're kind of slow up here and we've just started doing recycling probably last summer and it's all voluntary so that's interesting cities have a mandatory recycling
[speaker002:] um there there's some places that are strongly encouraging it then that the city will pick it up that's been one of the arguments here I'm just sitting here looking we've got four bins of glass and plasticine stuff but we have to carry it um some distance and some places um you can sell your uh recyclables and um for example um our church was was collecting newspapers
[speaker001:] yeah when when I was a kid we used to collect newspapers and bring them to a recycle thing we got like a penny a pound for them
[speaker002:] well it turns out that so much the problem in Texas is that uh they've got so much paper now from people recycling that they've got no way to uh reprocess it
[speaker001:] oh my
[speaker002:] that it requires an extremely it requires uh essentially a paper mill to recycle it and so the value has gone down it turns out it wasn't worth it for the church to do
[speaker001:] wow I didn't I didn't realize you would think now up here I I suppose they send it all back to the mill and there are paper mills within a couple of hundred miles of uh actually there is one in northern Vermont so there's probably a paper mill that's sixty miles from here I didn't think that you know in the large city that if the next recycling if the next mill is more like five hundred miles away it's a lot of money to transport
[speaker002:] well yeah well see that's in in Dallas there there no plan to build I think that there's some in East Texas there's some pulp mills but uh you have to go to Houston and uh it's interesting and then there's places that'll buy metal and they still buy aluminum can in fact that
[speaker001:] do you have to buy metal copper is a very good one to collect even aluminum yeah so
[speaker002:] well do you do do you do recycling
[speaker001:] uh we do do recycling and our city will pick up our recyclables they have these little blue bins um I don't recycle personally I I'm saying I want to do it
[speaker002:] oh
[speaker001:] but I don't get a lot of magazines I don't get a I don't buy the newspaper but I do have a lot of uh my trash has a lot of tin cans and a lot of cardboard a lot of different papers and cardboards
[speaker002:] well do you do you drink soda and such in aluminum cans
[speaker001:] yes but we have a bottle return a lot of the northern states and a lot of the eastern states have bottles we've had five cent deposits on our bottles for years
[speaker002:] oh so it's worth taking them back well see we don't have we have we have most of our soft drinks are in plastic liter or two liter bottles
[speaker001:] oh they should definitely get um the nickel returnable it's great for the kids because see a lot of the kids get the money from it and it's great for the boy scouts running around they knock door to door and the collect the bottles sometimes
[speaker002:] oh that's interesting you know that you know that there is a down side to all this you know about no good deed going unpunished that uh my mother sells um trees that they make paper out of and so every time I recycle newspapers uh in fact there's uh there's a uh Kimberly and Clark the the makers of kleenex and such
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] has a uh a big paper mill in fact I almost went to work for them I was offered a job and turned it down because my mother got it for me but it's twenty or thirty miles from my house every time you recycle that's one less tree my mother can sell and uh so it's a question should I be diligent and um um
[speaker001:] and recycle
[speaker002:] and and recycle and put my mother out of her livelihood
[speaker001:] uh uh yeah I see that
[speaker002:] but it it it's an interesting point though that uh you know everybody's so anxious to recycle and I suppose it does provide some gainful employment but uh
[speaker001:] but it takes away employment from the resource that its using
[speaker002:] well but in general I think it's a good idea because there's like the glass you can't argue that the glass it doesn't biodegrade and and uh the plastics obviously they don't
[speaker001:] I do too uh they don't either
[speaker002:] so we might as well recycle those
[speaker001:] yeah like I say it's not a very controversial thing everyone thinks we should do it it's just that we're so lazy I mean like personally I don't want to clean my I just have can cat food I don't want to clean the can and take the label off it and put it in a separate bin
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] you know I'd just rather get rid of that thing and throw it in the trash
[speaker002:] well that's what we've got ours we we started about New Year's we decided we'd get ambitious we took one load over there and now we've got these containers filling up with stuff and you know it it it's not a very high priority thing to go haul these uh containers over there
[speaker001:] well I think I I would be like when I bring my bottles back um if if if they're pretty clean and stuff so they can sit in my cellar for a couple of months and I get a whole bunch of them and bring them over and bring them over now if I had a recycling center and I kept it clean like if you said wash all the cans and things I wouldn't mind if it sat around too much but if if it stunk or something I wouldn't like doing it but um I produce quite a bit of trash my you know house and I see it but I don't see so much that I can recycle like I say it's a lot of different type paper and cardboard I'm not a real plastic person user but a lot of paper
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] um pretty much and I and I don't know how they sort that but if if I used a lot of can goods and I do use a lot of laundry detergent and a lot of plastic bottles I would think that I would I would have a recycling center but now it's just me and my husband so I don't know
[speaker002:] but every little bit helps right
[speaker001:] yeah I know what you're saying like well we have it at work we have a very aggressive recycling at work and I'm the one who will pick the newspaper out of the trash and bring it to the recycle bin see some people the recycle bin is on their way out
[speaker002:] what
[speaker001:] instead of carrying your newspapers when they get done with them at the end of the day they throw them in the trash
[speaker002:] well do you have separate trash cans at your desk
[speaker001:] um no we don't but other other offices do they have a box for papers
[speaker002:] well we have we have one that's recyclable and and then for uh lunch sacks and and waste food and and they gave us a list of things that aren't recycle and it turns out it's not so bad I I I get a lot of reports that that are covered in plastic or plastic like Saran Wrap or something anyway and then uh and cardboard there's a few interesting that we're we're recycling computer type paper
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] and and and uh one day they'll pick up uh the the cleaning people come through and they'll pick up recycled paper and then the next day they'll pick up the other so
[speaker001:] oh
[speaker002:] depending on how much uh you know and there's a lot of uh actually it works pretty well and then we have uh uh waste uh cans for aluminum in the in the break areas at work and so
[speaker001:] well that's that's a really good idea because um like our uh fruit fruit juices for some reason when they're in a can don't come with a deposit it
[speaker002:] oh
[speaker001:] they're they're thinking about putting a deposit on them because pretty much you have to you're having a whole separate recyclable bin just for these fruit cans where they're so much easier just to put a deposit on it because most
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] probably ninety percent of the aluminum cans do have deposits because they're beer and soda but when they sell juice it's some strange quirk in the law you don't have to have a deposit on it and even like the you know a very fine juice jar does not have to have a deposit on it but if it's got soda in it it does so it's a strange
[speaker002:] that's an interesting distinction that
[speaker001:] yeah they should they should clean clear that up it wouldn't take them much to put a stamp on uh on the uh juice cans as easily as the soda
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] so but redemption centers are a big thing up here they get a penny a can they handle they give you five cents and the when they return the can to the distributor I think they either get a penny or two pennies a can
[speaker002:] well see well see those of us that don't have state income taxes yet that's the big debate here in Texas that they their the legislature wants to put one in and it's interesting what people get upset about uh
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] it it really is the the
[speaker001:] is bottle is bottle return down there a heated debate
[speaker002:] well no the the big issue was is is uh when we moved here a few years ago is whether it was okay for you to uh drink beer while you were driving your pickup truck
[speaker001:] oh yeah
[speaker002:] and throw it out the at the and at uh so
[speaker001:] well we well well well here you can't can't drink
[speaker002:] we're we're now civilized now you can no longer you you cannot drink beer and drive but uh but it was it was actually legal
[speaker001:] well yes well I know I was in Atlanta and you could walk out the bar with your drink in your hand but here let me put that in a paper cup for you so that was strange but I think if some people they have they say well we're not going to start a can deposit because you have to get all these um the the recycle center you have to deal with the can and then you have to to recycle it and their problem's already solved because they can just come to states that do have bottle deposits
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] see how they handle it and see if it's a good way and then do it that way because as I like to say people are making money on it the cans do are worth something
[speaker002:] well you know the other well the other thing is it also is is a is a a good habit uh to uh just to conserve resources you know whether you know because when you get in the habit of doing that you think in terms of of uh of of things like saving gas