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Today is recycling day, so I put the same garbage out, but put those broken canning jars into the recycle container where they really belong.

I didn't actually see the Waste Management truck go by today, but I'm down by the road now to get the mail, and see that they picked up my neighbor's garbage, but have ignored mine again, and have also left the broken jars. Pat is out to get her mail, too, so I ask what's the deal here? She shrugs, "I don't think they like broken glass in the recycling."

So... Waste Management will manage only certain kinds of waste. First off, you have to be a true consumer, producing enough waste at a regular clip, so that they will remember to stop. And the waste must meet certain standards, too. Nothing icky allowed. Hmmm...

The real question may be, why am I buying into this? As a culture, we have so sterilized our lives that we think we must have all our refuse wrapped in individual plastic bags, hauled off to a landfill where it will be wrapped in more plastic, then shrouded within a layer of impervious clay so that all of our icky leftovers will be completely banished from our universe for ever and ever, amen. A select percentage of this refuse, meeting certain strict standards, will be recycled with much fanfare and self-congratulatory pride, as if recycling were not the ancient rule of nature, but something we moderns have ingeniously invented. I will henceforth refer to this whole silly attitude as the Waste Management mentality.